Climate wars: The story of the hacked emails
Excellent compilation of all the work done to date on the scandal that is the global warming hoax.
The English newspaper The Guardian has spent considerable time putting together all their material, accessible for all.
Go take a look - click here.
global warming
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Paranormal Activity
The film, cost $15,000 to make, followed the Blair Witch model, and has made over $100,000,000 ... considering the cost versus the grosses, has made more than Avatar. Avatar would need to make about $3.5 billion to equal the gross from Paranormal Activity.
In any case, the film has just opened in Italy, and is pulling in more money than Avatar did , in Italy.
The film is also having an effect ...
"Several panic attacks lasting more than half an hour took place," an emergency response worker said.
"The most serious case is that of a 14-year-old girl who was brought to the hospital in a state of paralysis."
The Italian parents' association noted that admission to the movie is restricted in the United States, Britain, Germany and The Netherlands and asked for an age limit of 18 in Italy.
Defence minister Ignazio La Russa said: "For the past two weeks a trailer has been shown obsessively on TV, and is terrifying thousands of children."
The Defense Minister spoke out ... that must be a serious issue when the man responsible for the security of the nation, from invasions and such, comments on a film!!
ghosts
In any case, the film has just opened in Italy, and is pulling in more money than Avatar did , in Italy.
The film is also having an effect ...
"Several panic attacks lasting more than half an hour took place," an emergency response worker said.
"The most serious case is that of a 14-year-old girl who was brought to the hospital in a state of paralysis."
The Italian parents' association noted that admission to the movie is restricted in the United States, Britain, Germany and The Netherlands and asked for an age limit of 18 in Italy.
Defence minister Ignazio La Russa said: "For the past two weeks a trailer has been shown obsessively on TV, and is terrifying thousands of children."
The Defense Minister spoke out ... that must be a serious issue when the man responsible for the security of the nation, from invasions and such, comments on a film!!
ghosts
Obama Administration: Critics of Obama are helping al qaida.
How truly novel.
WH: Some Critics 'Serving the Goals of al Qaeda'
February 09, 2010 7:16 AM
ABC News
In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan -- Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism -- responds to critics of the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies by saying "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda."
Brennan writes that, "Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill."
In the oped, titled "'We need no lectures': Administration disrupts terrorists’ plots, takes fight to them abroad," Brennan writes that politics "should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe."
[Mr. Brennan, I assume you must have been asleep for seven years of the Bush administration - EVERY time the color code was raised, Democrats howled. EVERY time Bush invoked 9/11 - Democrats howled. EVERY time. Secret programs and actions taken by the administration to fight terrorism, were revealed, leaked - Congress was like a sieve ... the Democrats in congress. Amazing that you can, I assume with a straight face, write what you wrote. Amazing.]
The administration op-ed is in response to a USA Today editorial entitled "National security team fails to inspire confidence; Officials’ handling of Christmas Day attack looks like amateur hour."
Brennan provides a detailed defense of the administration's handling of failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab whom, he says, was "thoroughly interrogated and provided important information."
He suggests that many critics are hypocritical and clueless.
The most important breakthrough in the interrogation occurred "after Abdulmutallab was read his rights, which the FBI made standard policy under Michael Mukasey, President Bush's attorney general," he writes, noting that failed shoe bomber Richard Reid "was read his Miranda rights five minutes after being taken off a plane he tried to blow up. The same people who criticize the president today were silent back then."
Brennan said anyone who wants to change the policy would be casting aside lessons learned "in waging this war" on extremists.
"Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one's determination to resist cooperation," he writes.
He calls it "naive to think that transferring Abdulmutallab to military custody would have caused an outpouring of information. There is little difference between military and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform. The suspect gets access to a lawyer, and interrogation rules are nearly identical."
Moreover, Brennan says, hundreds of terrorists have been convicted in criminal courts while only three have been convicted in the military tribunal system.
The former CIA official also asserts that the Obama administration is doing a better job than the Bush administration did in taking the fight to al Qaeda. "This administration's efforts have disrupted dozens of terrorist plots against the homeland and been responsible for killing and capturing hundreds of hard-core terrorists, including senior leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond — far more than in 2008."
"We need no lectures about the fact that this nation is at war," he says.
[You do Mr. Brennan, you do. For Obama and his administration, there is no understanding of this fact - in the words he has said several times in the Islamic world, his attacks on the Bush administration during the campaign, his short time in the Senate and his attacks on efforts to defeat terror ... all these secret plots you are preventing, thank you for doing so. And how many did CIA or FBI or other entities within and outside the US government prevent during those seven years after 2001, that we were never told about. How many plots were stopped due to our ability to intercept details and funds - that we have never been told? Yet you want us to suddenly believe that this administration has scored more points than Bush. I simply do not believe you, nor can I. Not because it is not possible, but because that is not a focus for Obama - his focus is far astray from fighting the war against al qaida.]
USA Today's editorial writers see it all a bit differently, of course, writing that though "the Obama administration's national security officials have struggled to assure the public that they know exactly what they're doing," they are so far "achieving the opposite, and they're needlessly adding some jitters in the process."
The editorial writers fault the Obama administration for announcing "last week that an attack by al-Qaeda is likely in the next three to six months. The warning is bound to frighten the public, with no obvious benefit beyond the ability to say 'I told you so.'"
They also refer to National Intelligence Director Admiral Dennis Blair (ret.) as having "had a 'Duh!' moment" for acknowledging that "authorities fumbled the initial questioning of Abdulmutallab by failing to call in the high-value interrogation group, which was created to question terrorism suspects. Refreshingly candid, yes, but not a statement that inspires confidence. Especially when the same day, at another Senate hearing, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified that the high-value unit was still in its 'formation stages' and that 'there was no time' to get it to Detroit."
USA Today's editorial writers say that when senior administration officials revealed Abdulmutallab's cooperation with authorities, "the news pretty much negate(d) earlier claims that no intelligence was lost when Abdulmutallab was prematurely read his rights."
UPDATE: Missouri Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in response to the Brennan op-ed: "The only one making this political is the White House. The Administration must do better, because trying to pass the buck for their dangerous decisions and divulging sensitive information to al Qaeda is not an effective terror-fighting strategy."
terror
WH: Some Critics 'Serving the Goals of al Qaeda'
February 09, 2010 7:16 AM
ABC News
In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan -- Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism -- responds to critics of the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies by saying "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda."
Brennan writes that, "Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill."
In the oped, titled "'We need no lectures': Administration disrupts terrorists’ plots, takes fight to them abroad," Brennan writes that politics "should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe."
[Mr. Brennan, I assume you must have been asleep for seven years of the Bush administration - EVERY time the color code was raised, Democrats howled. EVERY time Bush invoked 9/11 - Democrats howled. EVERY time. Secret programs and actions taken by the administration to fight terrorism, were revealed, leaked - Congress was like a sieve ... the Democrats in congress. Amazing that you can, I assume with a straight face, write what you wrote. Amazing.]
The administration op-ed is in response to a USA Today editorial entitled "National security team fails to inspire confidence; Officials’ handling of Christmas Day attack looks like amateur hour."
Brennan provides a detailed defense of the administration's handling of failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab whom, he says, was "thoroughly interrogated and provided important information."
He suggests that many critics are hypocritical and clueless.
The most important breakthrough in the interrogation occurred "after Abdulmutallab was read his rights, which the FBI made standard policy under Michael Mukasey, President Bush's attorney general," he writes, noting that failed shoe bomber Richard Reid "was read his Miranda rights five minutes after being taken off a plane he tried to blow up. The same people who criticize the president today were silent back then."
Brennan said anyone who wants to change the policy would be casting aside lessons learned "in waging this war" on extremists.
"Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one's determination to resist cooperation," he writes.
He calls it "naive to think that transferring Abdulmutallab to military custody would have caused an outpouring of information. There is little difference between military and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform. The suspect gets access to a lawyer, and interrogation rules are nearly identical."
Moreover, Brennan says, hundreds of terrorists have been convicted in criminal courts while only three have been convicted in the military tribunal system.
The former CIA official also asserts that the Obama administration is doing a better job than the Bush administration did in taking the fight to al Qaeda. "This administration's efforts have disrupted dozens of terrorist plots against the homeland and been responsible for killing and capturing hundreds of hard-core terrorists, including senior leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond — far more than in 2008."
"We need no lectures about the fact that this nation is at war," he says.
[You do Mr. Brennan, you do. For Obama and his administration, there is no understanding of this fact - in the words he has said several times in the Islamic world, his attacks on the Bush administration during the campaign, his short time in the Senate and his attacks on efforts to defeat terror ... all these secret plots you are preventing, thank you for doing so. And how many did CIA or FBI or other entities within and outside the US government prevent during those seven years after 2001, that we were never told about. How many plots were stopped due to our ability to intercept details and funds - that we have never been told? Yet you want us to suddenly believe that this administration has scored more points than Bush. I simply do not believe you, nor can I. Not because it is not possible, but because that is not a focus for Obama - his focus is far astray from fighting the war against al qaida.]
USA Today's editorial writers see it all a bit differently, of course, writing that though "the Obama administration's national security officials have struggled to assure the public that they know exactly what they're doing," they are so far "achieving the opposite, and they're needlessly adding some jitters in the process."
The editorial writers fault the Obama administration for announcing "last week that an attack by al-Qaeda is likely in the next three to six months. The warning is bound to frighten the public, with no obvious benefit beyond the ability to say 'I told you so.'"
They also refer to National Intelligence Director Admiral Dennis Blair (ret.) as having "had a 'Duh!' moment" for acknowledging that "authorities fumbled the initial questioning of Abdulmutallab by failing to call in the high-value interrogation group, which was created to question terrorism suspects. Refreshingly candid, yes, but not a statement that inspires confidence. Especially when the same day, at another Senate hearing, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified that the high-value unit was still in its 'formation stages' and that 'there was no time' to get it to Detroit."
USA Today's editorial writers say that when senior administration officials revealed Abdulmutallab's cooperation with authorities, "the news pretty much negate(d) earlier claims that no intelligence was lost when Abdulmutallab was prematurely read his rights."
UPDATE: Missouri Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in response to the Brennan op-ed: "The only one making this political is the White House. The Administration must do better, because trying to pass the buck for their dangerous decisions and divulging sensitive information to al Qaeda is not an effective terror-fighting strategy."
terror
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Global Warming = No Snow (so says Robert F. Kennedy)
Palin's Big Oil infatuation
Los Angeles Times
September 24, 2008
By ROBERT F. KENNEDY Jr.
I was water-skiing with my children in a light drizzle off Hyannis, Mass., last month when a sudden, fierce storm plunged us into a melee of towering waves, raking rain, painful hail and midday darkness broken by blinding flashes of lightning. As I hurried to get my children out of the water and back to the dock, I shouted over the roaring wind, "This is some kind of tornado."
The fog consolidated and a waterspout hundreds of feet high rose from the white ocean and darted across its surface, landing for a moment on a moored outboard to spin it like a top, moving toward a distant shore where it briefly became a sand funnel, and then diffusing into the atmosphere as it rained down bits of beach on the harbor. For 24 hours, a light show of violent storms illuminated the coastline, accompanied by booming thunder. My dog was so undone by the display that she kept us all awake with her terrified whining. That same day, two waterspouts appeared on Long Island Sound.
Those odd climatological phenomena led me to reflect on the rapidly changing weather patterns that are altering the way we live. Lightning storms and strikes have tripled just since the beginning of the decade on Cape Cod. In the 1960s, we rarely saw lightning or heard thunder on the Massachusetts coast. I associate electrical storms with McLean, Va., where I spent the school year when I was growing up.
In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today's anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don't own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers.
In those days, I recall my uncle, President Kennedy, standing erect as he rode a toboggan in his top coat, never faltering until he slid into the boxwood at the bottom of the hill. Once, my father, Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, brought a delegation of visiting Eskimos home from the Justice Department for lunch at our house. They spent the afternoon building a great igloo in the deep snow in our backyard. My brothers and sisters played in the structure for several weeks before it began to melt. On weekend afternoons, we commonly joined hundreds of Georgetown residents for ice skating on Washington's C&O Canal, which these days rarely freezes enough to safely skate.
Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil and its carbon cronies continue to pour money into think tanks whose purpose is to deceive the American public into believing that global warming is a fantasy. In 1998, these companies plotted to deceive American citizens about climate science. Their goal, according to a meeting memo, was to orchestrate information so that "recognition of uncertainties become part of the conventional wisdom" and that "those promoting the Kyoto treaty ... appear to be out of touch with reality."
Since that meeting, Exxon has funneled $23 million into the climate-denial industry, according to Greenpeace, which combs the company's annual report each year. Since 2006, Exxon has cut off some of the worst offenders, but 28 climate-denial groups will still get funding this year.
[Mr. Kennedy, you mention $23 million funneled into denial by the oil company. Between 1998 and 2008, how many billions were poured into the ‘science’ of global warming?]
Corporate America's media toadies continue to amplify Exxon's deceptive message. The company can count on its hand puppets -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, John Stossel and Glenn Beck -- to shamelessly mouth skepticism about man-made climate change and give political cover to the oil industry's indentured servants on Capitol Hill. Oklahoma's Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe calls global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American public."
Now John McCain has chosen as his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a diligent student of Big Oil's crib sheets. She's something of a flat-earther who shares the current administration's contempt for science. Palin has expressed skepticism about evolution (which is like not believing in gravity), putting it on par with "creationism," which posits that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago.
She used to insist that human activities have nothing to do with climate change. "I'm not one ... who would attribute it to being man-made," she said in August. After she joined the GOP ticket, she magically reversed herself, to a point. "Man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming," she told Charles Gibson two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, Alaska is melting before our eyes; entire villages erode as sea ice vanishes, glaciers are disappearing at a frightening clip, and "dancing forests" caused by disappearing permafrost astonish residents and tourists. Palin had to keep her head buried particularly deep in an oil well to ever have denied that humans are causing climate change. But, as Upton Sinclair pointed out, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
[Brilliant quote – it is amazing how many ice age folks changed their tune once billions of dollars were available for those claiming global warming.]
Palin's enthusiastic embrace of Big Oil's agenda (if not always Big Oil itself) has been the platform of her hasty rise in Alaskan politics. In that sense she is as much a product of the oil industry as the current president and his vice president. Palin, whose husband is a production operator for BP on Alaska's North Slope, has sued the federal government over its listing of the polar bear as an endangered species threatened by global warming, and she has fought to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Alaska's coast to oil drilling.
When oil profits are at stake, her fantasy world appears to have no boundaries. About American's deadly oil dependence, she mused recently, "I beg to disagree with any candidate who would say we can't drill our way out of our problem."
I guess the only difference between Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney is ... lipstick.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an environmental lawyer and a professor at Pace University Law School.
Los Angeles Times
September 24, 2008
Silly people
Saturday, February 6, 2010
The Greaty Global Warming Scare
hysteria
The great global warming collapse
As the science scandals keep coming, the air has gone out of the climate-change movement.
The Globe and Mail
Margaret Wente
Feb. 06, 2010 4:15AM EST
In 2007, the most comprehensive report to date on global warming, issued by the respected United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made a shocking claim: The Himalayan glaciers could melt away as soon as 2035.
These glaciers provide the headwaters for Asia's nine largest rivers and lifelines for the more than one billion people who live downstream. Melting ice and snow would create mass flooding, followed by mass drought. The glacier story was reported around the world. Last December, a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental pressure group, warned, “The deal reached at Copenhagen will have huge ramifications for the lives of hundreds of millions of people who are already highly vulnerable due to widespread poverty.” To dramatize their country's plight, Nepal's top politicians strapped on oxygen tanks and held a cabinet meeting on Mount Everest.
But the claim was rubbish, and the world's top glaciologists knew it. It was based not on rigorously peer-reviewed science but on an anecdotal report by the WWF itself. When its background came to light on the eve of Copenhagen, Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, shrugged it off. But now, even leading scientists and environmental groups admit the IPCC is facing a crisis of credibility that makes the Climategate affair look like small change.
“The global warming movement as we have known it is dead,” the brilliant analyst Walter Russell Mead says in his blog on The American Interest. It was done in by a combination of bad science and bad politics.
The impetus for the Copenhagen conference was that the science makes it imperative for us to act. But even if that were true – and even if we knew what to do – a global deal was never in the cards. As Mr. Mead writes, “The global warming movement proposed a complex set of international agreements involving vast transfers of funds, intrusive regulations in national economies, and substantial changes to the domestic political economies of most countries on the planet.” Copenhagen was never going to produce a breakthrough. It was a dead end.
And now, the science scandals just keep on coming. First there was the vast cache of e-mails leaked from the University of East Anglia, home of a crucial research unit responsible for collecting temperature data. Although not fatal to the science, they revealed a snakepit of scheming to keep contradictory research from being published, make imperfect data look better, and withhold information from unfriendly third parties. If science is supposed to be open and transparent, these guys acted as if they had a lot to hide.
Despite widespread efforts to play down the Climategate e-mails, they were very damaging. An investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian – among the most aggressive advocates for action on climate change – has found that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed, and that documents relating to them could not be produced.
Meantime, the IPCC – the body widely regarded, until now, as the ultimate authority on climate science – is looking worse and worse. After it was forced to retract its claim about melting glaciers, Mr. Pachauri dismissed the error as a one-off. But other IPCC claims have turned out to be just as groundless.
For example, it warned that large tracts of the Amazon rain forest might be wiped out by global warming because they are extremely susceptible to even modest decreases in rainfall. The sole source for that claim, reports The Sunday Times of London, was a magazine article written by a pair of climate activists, one of whom worked for the WWF. One scientist contacted by the Times, a specialist in tropical forest ecology, called the article “a mess.”
Worse still, the Times has discovered that Mr. Pachauri's own Energy and Resources Unit, based in New Delhi, has collected millions in grants to study the effects of glacial melting – all on the strength of that bogus glacier claim, which happens to have been endorsed by the same scientist who now runs the unit that got the money. Even so, the IPCC chief is hanging tough. He insists the attacks on him are being orchestrated by companies facing lower profits.
Until now, anyone who questioned the credibility of the IPCC was labelled as a climate skeptic, or worse. But many climate scientists now sense a sinking ship, and they're bailing out. Among them is Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria who acknowledges that the climate body has crossed the line into advocacy. Even Britain's Greenpeace has called for Mr. Pachauri's resignation. India says it will establish its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the IPCC.
None of this is to say that global warming isn't real, or that human activity doesn't play a role, or that the IPCC is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren't valid. But the strategy pursued by activists (including scientists who have crossed the line into advocacy) has turned out to be fatally flawed.
By exaggerating the certainties, papering over the gaps, demonizing the skeptics and peddling tales of imminent catastrophe, they've discredited the entire climate-change movement. The political damage will be severe. As Mr. Mead succinctly puts it: “Skeptics up, Obama down, cap-and-trade dead.” That also goes for Canada, whose climate policies are inevitably tied to those of the United States.
“I don't think it's healthy to dismiss proper skepticism,” says John Beddington, the chief scientific adviser to the British government. He is a staunch believer in man-made climate change, but he also points out the complexity of climate science. “Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed.” In his view, it's time to stop circling the wagons and throw open the doors. How much the public will keep caring is another matter.
**************************************************
Practitioners of the global warming scam, defend, not the actions, but the broad claim that the climate is changing. One individual argued that the female reporter accomplished nothing with her column, and instead showed her ignorance for failing to demonstrate why glaciers were not melting and why everything claimed was not happening as it was happening, and anyone who went along with this nay saying was dumb as dirt.
We should be very very careful in how we proffer arguments or defend claims. The entire idea of global warming originated, not with 10,000 scientists concurring on the claim, but with 2-3 claims, quickly spread throughout many journals and articles, to be picked up by hundreds of scientists and many more journals, who each contributed their little bit to the underlying arguments ... the problem is the 2-3 original sources are all false, the weather monitoring stations are compromised, the charts and graphs, the modeling are all inaccurate. In truth, the global warming hysteria has no evidence that has not been fully compromised - it is The Emperor and he is naked.
However, nothing that has been revealed, developed, or reinterpreted changes the facts - our climate is slowly being altered. That fact remains indisputable to most reasonable people.
Everything else is disputable. There is no scientific consensus. There is plagiarism, manipulation, fabrication, deceit - and all for very base reasons - money. Billions and billions of dollars are at stake. Any scientist that says global warming is not happening does not get in on the billion dollar give-away. I would change my tune if I could get just $5 million. I would advocate to the end of time how the earth is warming and everything points to the conclusion our climate is changing, warming. Forget truth, the money is what drives these people - scientists or not, billions of dollars have a strange effect on people.
What we are left with is the question of - NOT whether climate change is occurring, but whether we can alter that change in any form, worth wasting trillions of American dollars on. I am firmly convinced the answer is no. We humans play such a fractional role in what is uplifted into the atmosphere that we surely think of ourselves as gods to imagine for any moment in time that we can alter the universe, or at the very least, the earth. Very godly, if I say so myself.
It is quite clear - this path we are on. We need look back at every humanist revolution, or shift from religious to science as a source of salvation, and it occurs quite a few times in the last three hundred years - science will save us, if we but let it. This 'science' is nothing but the agnostic / atheists religion, and their science, no more scientific than the science of the religious, albeit covered in very pretty cloth.
global warming
The great global warming collapse
As the science scandals keep coming, the air has gone out of the climate-change movement.
The Globe and Mail
Margaret Wente
Feb. 06, 2010 4:15AM EST
In 2007, the most comprehensive report to date on global warming, issued by the respected United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made a shocking claim: The Himalayan glaciers could melt away as soon as 2035.
These glaciers provide the headwaters for Asia's nine largest rivers and lifelines for the more than one billion people who live downstream. Melting ice and snow would create mass flooding, followed by mass drought. The glacier story was reported around the world. Last December, a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental pressure group, warned, “The deal reached at Copenhagen will have huge ramifications for the lives of hundreds of millions of people who are already highly vulnerable due to widespread poverty.” To dramatize their country's plight, Nepal's top politicians strapped on oxygen tanks and held a cabinet meeting on Mount Everest.
But the claim was rubbish, and the world's top glaciologists knew it. It was based not on rigorously peer-reviewed science but on an anecdotal report by the WWF itself. When its background came to light on the eve of Copenhagen, Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, shrugged it off. But now, even leading scientists and environmental groups admit the IPCC is facing a crisis of credibility that makes the Climategate affair look like small change.
“The global warming movement as we have known it is dead,” the brilliant analyst Walter Russell Mead says in his blog on The American Interest. It was done in by a combination of bad science and bad politics.
The impetus for the Copenhagen conference was that the science makes it imperative for us to act. But even if that were true – and even if we knew what to do – a global deal was never in the cards. As Mr. Mead writes, “The global warming movement proposed a complex set of international agreements involving vast transfers of funds, intrusive regulations in national economies, and substantial changes to the domestic political economies of most countries on the planet.” Copenhagen was never going to produce a breakthrough. It was a dead end.
And now, the science scandals just keep on coming. First there was the vast cache of e-mails leaked from the University of East Anglia, home of a crucial research unit responsible for collecting temperature data. Although not fatal to the science, they revealed a snakepit of scheming to keep contradictory research from being published, make imperfect data look better, and withhold information from unfriendly third parties. If science is supposed to be open and transparent, these guys acted as if they had a lot to hide.
Despite widespread efforts to play down the Climategate e-mails, they were very damaging. An investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian – among the most aggressive advocates for action on climate change – has found that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed, and that documents relating to them could not be produced.
Meantime, the IPCC – the body widely regarded, until now, as the ultimate authority on climate science – is looking worse and worse. After it was forced to retract its claim about melting glaciers, Mr. Pachauri dismissed the error as a one-off. But other IPCC claims have turned out to be just as groundless.
For example, it warned that large tracts of the Amazon rain forest might be wiped out by global warming because they are extremely susceptible to even modest decreases in rainfall. The sole source for that claim, reports The Sunday Times of London, was a magazine article written by a pair of climate activists, one of whom worked for the WWF. One scientist contacted by the Times, a specialist in tropical forest ecology, called the article “a mess.”
Worse still, the Times has discovered that Mr. Pachauri's own Energy and Resources Unit, based in New Delhi, has collected millions in grants to study the effects of glacial melting – all on the strength of that bogus glacier claim, which happens to have been endorsed by the same scientist who now runs the unit that got the money. Even so, the IPCC chief is hanging tough. He insists the attacks on him are being orchestrated by companies facing lower profits.
Until now, anyone who questioned the credibility of the IPCC was labelled as a climate skeptic, or worse. But many climate scientists now sense a sinking ship, and they're bailing out. Among them is Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria who acknowledges that the climate body has crossed the line into advocacy. Even Britain's Greenpeace has called for Mr. Pachauri's resignation. India says it will establish its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the IPCC.
None of this is to say that global warming isn't real, or that human activity doesn't play a role, or that the IPCC is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren't valid. But the strategy pursued by activists (including scientists who have crossed the line into advocacy) has turned out to be fatally flawed.
By exaggerating the certainties, papering over the gaps, demonizing the skeptics and peddling tales of imminent catastrophe, they've discredited the entire climate-change movement. The political damage will be severe. As Mr. Mead succinctly puts it: “Skeptics up, Obama down, cap-and-trade dead.” That also goes for Canada, whose climate policies are inevitably tied to those of the United States.
“I don't think it's healthy to dismiss proper skepticism,” says John Beddington, the chief scientific adviser to the British government. He is a staunch believer in man-made climate change, but he also points out the complexity of climate science. “Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed.” In his view, it's time to stop circling the wagons and throw open the doors. How much the public will keep caring is another matter.
**************************************************
Practitioners of the global warming scam, defend, not the actions, but the broad claim that the climate is changing. One individual argued that the female reporter accomplished nothing with her column, and instead showed her ignorance for failing to demonstrate why glaciers were not melting and why everything claimed was not happening as it was happening, and anyone who went along with this nay saying was dumb as dirt.
We should be very very careful in how we proffer arguments or defend claims. The entire idea of global warming originated, not with 10,000 scientists concurring on the claim, but with 2-3 claims, quickly spread throughout many journals and articles, to be picked up by hundreds of scientists and many more journals, who each contributed their little bit to the underlying arguments ... the problem is the 2-3 original sources are all false, the weather monitoring stations are compromised, the charts and graphs, the modeling are all inaccurate. In truth, the global warming hysteria has no evidence that has not been fully compromised - it is The Emperor and he is naked.
However, nothing that has been revealed, developed, or reinterpreted changes the facts - our climate is slowly being altered. That fact remains indisputable to most reasonable people.
Everything else is disputable. There is no scientific consensus. There is plagiarism, manipulation, fabrication, deceit - and all for very base reasons - money. Billions and billions of dollars are at stake. Any scientist that says global warming is not happening does not get in on the billion dollar give-away. I would change my tune if I could get just $5 million. I would advocate to the end of time how the earth is warming and everything points to the conclusion our climate is changing, warming. Forget truth, the money is what drives these people - scientists or not, billions of dollars have a strange effect on people.
What we are left with is the question of - NOT whether climate change is occurring, but whether we can alter that change in any form, worth wasting trillions of American dollars on. I am firmly convinced the answer is no. We humans play such a fractional role in what is uplifted into the atmosphere that we surely think of ourselves as gods to imagine for any moment in time that we can alter the universe, or at the very least, the earth. Very godly, if I say so myself.
It is quite clear - this path we are on. We need look back at every humanist revolution, or shift from religious to science as a source of salvation, and it occurs quite a few times in the last three hundred years - science will save us, if we but let it. This 'science' is nothing but the agnostic / atheists religion, and their science, no more scientific than the science of the religious, albeit covered in very pretty cloth.
global warming
Turkey: Culture of Peace, Horizons of Ignorance.
honor
Turkish girl buried alive by father and grandfather for talking to boys
By Tom Pettifor
6/02/2010
Mirror.co.uk
A terrified girl of 16 was buried alive by her father and grandfather - as a punishment for talking to boys.
The body of Medine Memi was found in a sitting position with her hands tied in a 6ft hole beneath a chicken coop.
A postmortem showed she had been conscious when she was covered with dirt.
One forensic investigator said: "What we found is blood-curdling.
"She had no bruises on her body and no sign of narcotics or poison in her blood - she was alive and fully conscious when she was placed into the pit."
The medical examination revealed a large amount of soil in Medine's lungs and stomach - indicating she had suffocated during a slow and agonising death.
The teenager's remains were discovered outside her family's house in the town of Kahta in south-eastern Turkey.
She had been missing for 40 days and the hole had been cemented over.
A coroner was told how desperate Medine repeatedly tried to get help from local police in the weeks leading up to her horrific death. Her father and grandfather are accused of killing her because her friendship with boys "brought dishonour on the family".
*****************************************
There are other sources:
BBC - which includes the following tidbit: A local organisation that campaigns against honour killings said the victim, one of 10 children, had gone three times to the police to complain that she was being beaten, but she was sent back to her family each time.
and even more insight into the people of peace, we are told we must accomodate ...
...the practice is linked more to the customs of this region of Turkey, than to religious belief.
When girls or women are deemed to have stained the family honour, by behaviour as innocent as simply talking to boys, there is strong peer pressure from the community on the male members of the family to restore their honour, say groups working on the issue in the south-east.
The only way allowed by their code is to kill the girl or woman - usually a young man is given the task after a family council meeting, and the method and location of the killing are discussed in detail.
Afterwards, the family will try to pretend she never existed.
or visit
Turkish Daily News, English
Now - some will tsk tsk and exclaim that all this proves is Americans have no shame. We dishonor our fathers, mothers, families, and think nothing of it. True, to a degree. Many Americans value the life of innocents, and the rights of individuals over groups - or, we place an emphasis on individual liberties versus group liberties. I understand the conundrum we end up in when we go to extremes, but we do not participate in barbaric actions that were sanctioned in pre-Islamic times, condoned in many parts of the Islamic world, and tolerated in several other parts. Of course you could reference abortion - and that would be the best you could do, a response that does not have a snappy response. The best is - a majority of Americans oppose abortion. It is kept alive as an issue by a minority. In any case, the barbarism and evil acts of a father upon a daughter, are unconscionable.
evil
Turkish girl buried alive by father and grandfather for talking to boys
By Tom Pettifor
6/02/2010
Mirror.co.uk
A terrified girl of 16 was buried alive by her father and grandfather - as a punishment for talking to boys.
The body of Medine Memi was found in a sitting position with her hands tied in a 6ft hole beneath a chicken coop.
A postmortem showed she had been conscious when she was covered with dirt.
One forensic investigator said: "What we found is blood-curdling.
"She had no bruises on her body and no sign of narcotics or poison in her blood - she was alive and fully conscious when she was placed into the pit."
The medical examination revealed a large amount of soil in Medine's lungs and stomach - indicating she had suffocated during a slow and agonising death.
The teenager's remains were discovered outside her family's house in the town of Kahta in south-eastern Turkey.
She had been missing for 40 days and the hole had been cemented over.
A coroner was told how desperate Medine repeatedly tried to get help from local police in the weeks leading up to her horrific death. Her father and grandfather are accused of killing her because her friendship with boys "brought dishonour on the family".
*****************************************
There are other sources:
BBC - which includes the following tidbit: A local organisation that campaigns against honour killings said the victim, one of 10 children, had gone three times to the police to complain that she was being beaten, but she was sent back to her family each time.
and even more insight into the people of peace, we are told we must accomodate ...
...the practice is linked more to the customs of this region of Turkey, than to religious belief.
When girls or women are deemed to have stained the family honour, by behaviour as innocent as simply talking to boys, there is strong peer pressure from the community on the male members of the family to restore their honour, say groups working on the issue in the south-east.
The only way allowed by their code is to kill the girl or woman - usually a young man is given the task after a family council meeting, and the method and location of the killing are discussed in detail.
Afterwards, the family will try to pretend she never existed.
or visit
Turkish Daily News, English
Now - some will tsk tsk and exclaim that all this proves is Americans have no shame. We dishonor our fathers, mothers, families, and think nothing of it. True, to a degree. Many Americans value the life of innocents, and the rights of individuals over groups - or, we place an emphasis on individual liberties versus group liberties. I understand the conundrum we end up in when we go to extremes, but we do not participate in barbaric actions that were sanctioned in pre-Islamic times, condoned in many parts of the Islamic world, and tolerated in several other parts. Of course you could reference abortion - and that would be the best you could do, a response that does not have a snappy response. The best is - a majority of Americans oppose abortion. It is kept alive as an issue by a minority. In any case, the barbarism and evil acts of a father upon a daughter, are unconscionable.
evil
Friday, February 5, 2010
Mr. Obama: Where are all the jobs? Nancy Pelosi: Where are the jobs!
8.4 million jobs gone. Where are the jobs, Mr. Obama? Where?
DATA SNAP:US Jan Jobless Rate Falls To 9.7%; Payrolls -20K
By Luca Di Leo and Jeff Bater
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly declined in January, but the economy continued to shed jobs and revisions painted a bleaker picture for 2009, casting doubt over the labor market's strength.
The unemployment rate, calculated using a household survey, fell to 9.7% last month from an unrevised 10% in December, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast the jobless rate would edge higher to 10.1%.
Meantime, nonfarm payrolls fell by 20,000 compared with a revised 150,000 drop decline in December. Economists had expected payrolls to be flat. The December figure was revised down sharply from an originally reported 85,000 drop.
The Labor Department's annual benchmark revision to the survey that produces the monthly payroll report painted a bleaker 2009 picture. Last year, job losses were almost 600,000 more than previously reported, the revisions showed.
The January report was influenced by several special factors that may not be consistent with the underlying jobs trend. Temporary hiring for the U.S. 2010 census collection helped the employment picture in January, while the unusually cold weather probably hurt it. The interaction of a very bad employment year in 2009 with January seasonal factors clouds the picture further, analysts warned ahead of the release.
"We will be inclined to treat either a very strong or a very weak employment report -- particularly the payroll portion -- with a greater than usual skepticism," Goldman Sachs economist Andrew Tilton warned in a note.
The so-called "underemployment" rate--which includes everyone in the official rate plus those who are neither working nor looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently--fell to 16.5% in January from 17.3%.
Since the start of the recession at the end of 2007, payroll employment has fallen by 8.4 million. Over the last quarter, however, employment has shown little net change as the economy's recovery helped companies retain workers.
Although the revisions show there were more job losses in 2009 than previously reported, the moderation in payroll cuts in the second half of last year remained broadly in place. November was revised to show a 64,000 gain in payrolls from a previous reading that only 4,000 jobs were added.
Last month, employment fell in construction, transportation and warehousing, while retail trade and temporary help services added jobs. Temporary services added 52,000 jobs in January.
The Federal Reserve's view that U.S. interest rates must remain at a record low for several months shouldn't change following the jobs report. Fed officials have in the past warned against reading too much from just one set of monthly data.
The central bank's rate-setting committee left interest rates close to zero last week in the face of low inflation and high unemployment. The labor market's performance is likely to be the main driver of Fed decisions this year over if and when it is time to raise interest rates.
Fed officials have predicted the unemployment rate will remain above 9% in the fourth quarter of 2010 due to a slow recovery. The economy surged in the fourth quarter of last year, but that was driven by inventories, a factor that will fade this year.
Friday's jobs report showed that average hourly earnings rose to $18.89 in Janaury from $18.84 the previous month. The average workweek was up by 0.1 hour to 33.3 hours.
These data were also revised by the Labor Department, which started to report hours and earnings for all employees, instead of just for production and non- supervisory workers.
_____________________________________________________________
I have deleted certain words/names/dates. After the post, I will provide what is missing.
Pelosi: Where Are the Jobs, Mr. President?
Washington, D.C. -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' announcement that 470,000 people abandoned their job searches in ___ and that 3.2 million private sector jobs have been lost since __________:
“The fact is that ____________ misguided economic policies have failed to create jobs. Since _______ took office, the country has lost 3.2 million jobs, the worst record since President Hoover. And today we learned that in July nearly half a million people gave up looking for a job.
“Job losses are taking a real toll on the financial security of American families. While Democrats are fighting for opportunity, jobs, and economic security for working families, Republicans continue to focus on helping those who need help the least.
“According to today’s survey, while the national unemployment rate dropped slightly, it still stands at a near record high. In addition, the unemployment rate for African Americans was still over 11 percent in July, and the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 8.2 percent in July.
“It is time for ______________ to get to work for all Americans, not just the elite few.”
And the UNREDACTED VERSION
Pelosi: Where Are the Jobs, Mr. President?
August 1, 2003
Washington, D.C. -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' announcement that 470,000 people abandoned their job searches in July and that 3.2 million private sector jobs have been lost since President Bush took office:
“The fact is that President Bush’s misguided economic policies have failed to create jobs. Since President Bush took office, the country has lost 3.2 million jobs, the worst record since President Hoover. And today we learned that in July nearly half a million people gave up looking for a job.
“Job losses are taking a real toll on the financial security of American families. While Democrats are fighting for opportunity, jobs, and economic security for working families, Republicans continue to focus on helping those who need help the least.
“According to today’s survey, while the national unemployment rate dropped slightly, it still stands at a near record high. In addition, the unemployment rate for African Americans was still over 11 percent in July, and the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 8.2 percent in July.
“It is time for President Bush and the Republicans to get to work for all Americans, not just the elite few.”
I'd say it is high time the Democrats focus on job growth and not so much on government growth.
Democrats
DATA SNAP:US Jan Jobless Rate Falls To 9.7%; Payrolls -20K
By Luca Di Leo and Jeff Bater
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly declined in January, but the economy continued to shed jobs and revisions painted a bleaker picture for 2009, casting doubt over the labor market's strength.
The unemployment rate, calculated using a household survey, fell to 9.7% last month from an unrevised 10% in December, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast the jobless rate would edge higher to 10.1%.
Meantime, nonfarm payrolls fell by 20,000 compared with a revised 150,000 drop decline in December. Economists had expected payrolls to be flat. The December figure was revised down sharply from an originally reported 85,000 drop.
The Labor Department's annual benchmark revision to the survey that produces the monthly payroll report painted a bleaker 2009 picture. Last year, job losses were almost 600,000 more than previously reported, the revisions showed.
The January report was influenced by several special factors that may not be consistent with the underlying jobs trend. Temporary hiring for the U.S. 2010 census collection helped the employment picture in January, while the unusually cold weather probably hurt it. The interaction of a very bad employment year in 2009 with January seasonal factors clouds the picture further, analysts warned ahead of the release.
"We will be inclined to treat either a very strong or a very weak employment report -- particularly the payroll portion -- with a greater than usual skepticism," Goldman Sachs economist Andrew Tilton warned in a note.
The so-called "underemployment" rate--which includes everyone in the official rate plus those who are neither working nor looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently--fell to 16.5% in January from 17.3%.
Since the start of the recession at the end of 2007, payroll employment has fallen by 8.4 million. Over the last quarter, however, employment has shown little net change as the economy's recovery helped companies retain workers.
Although the revisions show there were more job losses in 2009 than previously reported, the moderation in payroll cuts in the second half of last year remained broadly in place. November was revised to show a 64,000 gain in payrolls from a previous reading that only 4,000 jobs were added.
Last month, employment fell in construction, transportation and warehousing, while retail trade and temporary help services added jobs. Temporary services added 52,000 jobs in January.
The Federal Reserve's view that U.S. interest rates must remain at a record low for several months shouldn't change following the jobs report. Fed officials have in the past warned against reading too much from just one set of monthly data.
The central bank's rate-setting committee left interest rates close to zero last week in the face of low inflation and high unemployment. The labor market's performance is likely to be the main driver of Fed decisions this year over if and when it is time to raise interest rates.
Fed officials have predicted the unemployment rate will remain above 9% in the fourth quarter of 2010 due to a slow recovery. The economy surged in the fourth quarter of last year, but that was driven by inventories, a factor that will fade this year.
Friday's jobs report showed that average hourly earnings rose to $18.89 in Janaury from $18.84 the previous month. The average workweek was up by 0.1 hour to 33.3 hours.
These data were also revised by the Labor Department, which started to report hours and earnings for all employees, instead of just for production and non- supervisory workers.
_____________________________________________________________
I have deleted certain words/names/dates. After the post, I will provide what is missing.
Pelosi: Where Are the Jobs, Mr. President?
Washington, D.C. -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' announcement that 470,000 people abandoned their job searches in ___ and that 3.2 million private sector jobs have been lost since __________:
“The fact is that ____________ misguided economic policies have failed to create jobs. Since _______ took office, the country has lost 3.2 million jobs, the worst record since President Hoover. And today we learned that in July nearly half a million people gave up looking for a job.
“Job losses are taking a real toll on the financial security of American families. While Democrats are fighting for opportunity, jobs, and economic security for working families, Republicans continue to focus on helping those who need help the least.
“According to today’s survey, while the national unemployment rate dropped slightly, it still stands at a near record high. In addition, the unemployment rate for African Americans was still over 11 percent in July, and the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 8.2 percent in July.
“It is time for ______________ to get to work for all Americans, not just the elite few.”
And the UNREDACTED VERSION
Pelosi: Where Are the Jobs, Mr. President?
August 1, 2003
Washington, D.C. -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' announcement that 470,000 people abandoned their job searches in July and that 3.2 million private sector jobs have been lost since President Bush took office:
“The fact is that President Bush’s misguided economic policies have failed to create jobs. Since President Bush took office, the country has lost 3.2 million jobs, the worst record since President Hoover. And today we learned that in July nearly half a million people gave up looking for a job.
“Job losses are taking a real toll on the financial security of American families. While Democrats are fighting for opportunity, jobs, and economic security for working families, Republicans continue to focus on helping those who need help the least.
“According to today’s survey, while the national unemployment rate dropped slightly, it still stands at a near record high. In addition, the unemployment rate for African Americans was still over 11 percent in July, and the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 8.2 percent in July.
“It is time for President Bush and the Republicans to get to work for all Americans, not just the elite few.”
I'd say it is high time the Democrats focus on job growth and not so much on government growth.
Democrats
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Lech Walesa and the state of the US and World
1/29/10. Chicago. At a rally for a candidate for the Republican nomination for US Senate, Lech Walesa spoke. Mr. Walesa is a Nobel Laureate, former President of Poland, and, if one man can be singled out above others in being instrumental in the defeat of the Evil Empire, it would be him.
He spoke at the rally in Chicago and said, through a translator, that "The United States is only one superpower. Today they lead the world. Nobody has doubts about it. Militarily. They also lead economically but they're getting weak. But they don't lead morally and politically anymore. The world has no leadership. The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations. There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today, we lost that hope."
Poland
He spoke at the rally in Chicago and said, through a translator, that "The United States is only one superpower. Today they lead the world. Nobody has doubts about it. Militarily. They also lead economically but they're getting weak. But they don't lead morally and politically anymore. The world has no leadership. The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations. There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today, we lost that hope."
Poland
Just the details
Of course there are extenuating circumstances. Of course liberals will blame all the increases on Bush. Of course. But, the facts are still the facts, and while you can diminish the severity of any one increase, or pass the responsibility to someone else, it is as valid as any claim made by liberals against Bush, or more.
12,365,000,000,000. As of 2/4/10 at 9:20 am (rounded to nearest billion).
5,706,174,969,873.86 The day Bush took office, the debt was …
10,628,881,485,510.23. The last day of Bush’s second term.
The increase was nearly $5 trillion dollars over eight years, with a huge bailout plan at the end of his administration so as to not throw it on Obama the first day.
10,626,877,048,913.08. The day Obama took office, the debt was.
12,360,943,989,345.48. On February 2, 2010.
That is an increase of 1,734,066,940,432.40 in 378 days.
Congress will vote to increase the debt limit to 14.3 trillion this month.
That would be an increase from January 20, 2009 of $3,673,122,951,087.00 in less than 390 days.
Bush took office with a debt at $5,706,174,969,873.86. Approximately 390 days later, the debt was at $6,003,453,016,583.85. An increase of $297,178,046,710.00.
Of course the wars dramatically increased these numbers. And if we look at the next 2 years of the Bush administration, we would see a dramatic increase. Then again, we will see a meteoric rise in the US debt, very shortly.
debt
12,365,000,000,000. As of 2/4/10 at 9:20 am (rounded to nearest billion).
5,706,174,969,873.86 The day Bush took office, the debt was …
10,628,881,485,510.23. The last day of Bush’s second term.
The increase was nearly $5 trillion dollars over eight years, with a huge bailout plan at the end of his administration so as to not throw it on Obama the first day.
10,626,877,048,913.08. The day Obama took office, the debt was.
12,360,943,989,345.48. On February 2, 2010.
That is an increase of 1,734,066,940,432.40 in 378 days.
Congress will vote to increase the debt limit to 14.3 trillion this month.
That would be an increase from January 20, 2009 of $3,673,122,951,087.00 in less than 390 days.
Bush took office with a debt at $5,706,174,969,873.86. Approximately 390 days later, the debt was at $6,003,453,016,583.85. An increase of $297,178,046,710.00.
Of course the wars dramatically increased these numbers. And if we look at the next 2 years of the Bush administration, we would see a dramatic increase. Then again, we will see a meteoric rise in the US debt, very shortly.
debt
Obama: What He Should Not Say, When We Are Attacked.
Al-Qaeda Likely to Try U.S. Attack Within Six Months
February 02, 2010, 06:53 PM EST
By Chris Dolmetsch
Business Week
Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Al-Qaeda is likely to attempt a terrorist attack in the U.S. within the next three to six months, U.S. intelligence officials told a Senate panel in Washington.
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told the Senate Intelligence Committee that an attempted attack is “certain” within that time frame. Blair was responding to a question from the panel’s chairwoman, California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, during an annual assessment of threats to the U.S.
The other four officials to testify before the panel today agreed with Blair when questioned by Feinstein: Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, Lieutenant General Ronald L. Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and John Dinger, acting assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
“I think that tells us something very clearly,” Feinstein said.
Al-Qaeda is changing its methods to avoid detection as it becomes more difficult for the group to conduct large attacks, Panetta told the panel. The terrorist group is relying more on homegrown terrorists to stage smaller plots in their own countries and trying to inspire so-called “lone wolves,” he said.
“My greatest concern and what keeps me awake at night is that al-Qaeda and its terrorist allies and affiliates could very well attack the United States in our homeland,” Panetta testified.
The U.K.’s international terrorism threat level was raised to “severe” from “substantial” on Jan. 23, indicating that authorities consider an attack there is highly likely. The U.S. government said it didn’t plan to raise its own alert level in response to the British action.
Of course Mr. Obama would not raise the threat level. To imagine that he would, would be to cross from reality into a fantastical trip into an adventureland of fantasy and dreams.
Naturally Obama is in denial. He will of course concede that all intelligence points in this direction, but his skepticism of the competence of those within our intelligence service, will lead him (and his minions) to qualify anything they are told. Obama has stated on more than two occasions (Turkey and Egypt) that the US is not at war with Islamo-fascism, but rather with a few bad eggs.
Obama will react when we are attacked and hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead, and he will express 'outrage', 'anger', 'sadness', and a 'commitment to hunt down those individuals responsible and bring them to justice'. He will remind us that even in our own culture, we have had bad eggs - Timothy McVeigh, for example. We should not jump to conclusions, we should not let our grief get the better of us, we should not let anger and hate take control, for that is what they want us to do. Rather, we need to mourn our losses, and use the long-arm of the law to hunt down and bring to justice those bad eggs responsible. Obama will go on to explain that he has spoken to (x number of) Muslim leaders and have asked for their help in locating anyone responsible.
I hate to be right this time, but I will be, again, and he will not learn, and we will die because he refuses to understand the reality of the islamic world. No, we are not at war with 1.25 billion people. That is silly and foolish for anyone to argue. We are at war with an ideology that has infected up to 15% of the Islamic world, or 180,000,000. Surely we do not have to fight and kill 187,000,000! And the answer is No. 187,000,000 may believe we are evil, corrupted, and immoral, worthy of going directly to hell, but believing something and supporting murder as a cause does not equal having war waged upon them. If we were to wage war on them, we would have many Europeans who feel very similarly toward us albeit the immorality would be a humanistic synonym for the religious immoral - perhaps 'hater of mother earth, immoral'. So then who is it we are at war with, surely Obama needs to define it to understand it.
Of tghe 187,000,000, more than likely about 10% wake up every day and a) provide aid, funding, support, comfort, to those who b) wake up every day thinking about how best to kill anyone who opposes them, most specifically Americans. 18,000,000 people are more actively engaged and or physically active in planning the murders of millions. So are we at war with 18 million people. More so, yes, but just as the citizens of Virginia or North Carolina aided and supported the Southern forces of the Confederacy, did not mean we were at war with every civilian. You defeat the army, and the people, mostly, become compliant and passive - why? and this is where Obama has failed to grasp whatever amount of time he had in the Muslim country he was partially raised - victory is strength, and Islamic armies tend to fade into the background when defeated, while their supporters blend back into society and would pose little threat.
So of the 18 million, how many are we at war with? Again, 10-12% is the going percentage. About 2 million men (and a few women). We must, in conjunction with our friends and allies, neutralize them as threats. More specifically than neutralizing all 2 million, are about 150,000 who fund and lead these groups - they must all be killed.
Obama does not understand how this Islamic fascist ideology has corrupted his idealistic view of Islam and how McVeigh is simply a stupid example to use.
Islam respects strength. It does not respect enemies who are weak. So, Obama would argue, let us not be enemies. But we are to 187,000,000, and they will never think differently - NEVER, no matter how many naive and foolish speeches you give to Muslims. I could care less what the other 1 billion think, they are irrelevant. The 187,000,000 have taken control of Islam, for all intents and purposes, and appealing to the love in their hearts will NEVER change the reality.
Nor will it save the hundreds of thousands of American lives.
Islam
February 02, 2010, 06:53 PM EST
By Chris Dolmetsch
Business Week
Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Al-Qaeda is likely to attempt a terrorist attack in the U.S. within the next three to six months, U.S. intelligence officials told a Senate panel in Washington.
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told the Senate Intelligence Committee that an attempted attack is “certain” within that time frame. Blair was responding to a question from the panel’s chairwoman, California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, during an annual assessment of threats to the U.S.
The other four officials to testify before the panel today agreed with Blair when questioned by Feinstein: Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, Lieutenant General Ronald L. Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and John Dinger, acting assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
“I think that tells us something very clearly,” Feinstein said.
Al-Qaeda is changing its methods to avoid detection as it becomes more difficult for the group to conduct large attacks, Panetta told the panel. The terrorist group is relying more on homegrown terrorists to stage smaller plots in their own countries and trying to inspire so-called “lone wolves,” he said.
“My greatest concern and what keeps me awake at night is that al-Qaeda and its terrorist allies and affiliates could very well attack the United States in our homeland,” Panetta testified.
The U.K.’s international terrorism threat level was raised to “severe” from “substantial” on Jan. 23, indicating that authorities consider an attack there is highly likely. The U.S. government said it didn’t plan to raise its own alert level in response to the British action.
Of course Mr. Obama would not raise the threat level. To imagine that he would, would be to cross from reality into a fantastical trip into an adventureland of fantasy and dreams.
Naturally Obama is in denial. He will of course concede that all intelligence points in this direction, but his skepticism of the competence of those within our intelligence service, will lead him (and his minions) to qualify anything they are told. Obama has stated on more than two occasions (Turkey and Egypt) that the US is not at war with Islamo-fascism, but rather with a few bad eggs.
Obama will react when we are attacked and hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead, and he will express 'outrage', 'anger', 'sadness', and a 'commitment to hunt down those individuals responsible and bring them to justice'. He will remind us that even in our own culture, we have had bad eggs - Timothy McVeigh, for example. We should not jump to conclusions, we should not let our grief get the better of us, we should not let anger and hate take control, for that is what they want us to do. Rather, we need to mourn our losses, and use the long-arm of the law to hunt down and bring to justice those bad eggs responsible. Obama will go on to explain that he has spoken to (x number of) Muslim leaders and have asked for their help in locating anyone responsible.
I hate to be right this time, but I will be, again, and he will not learn, and we will die because he refuses to understand the reality of the islamic world. No, we are not at war with 1.25 billion people. That is silly and foolish for anyone to argue. We are at war with an ideology that has infected up to 15% of the Islamic world, or 180,000,000. Surely we do not have to fight and kill 187,000,000! And the answer is No. 187,000,000 may believe we are evil, corrupted, and immoral, worthy of going directly to hell, but believing something and supporting murder as a cause does not equal having war waged upon them. If we were to wage war on them, we would have many Europeans who feel very similarly toward us albeit the immorality would be a humanistic synonym for the religious immoral - perhaps 'hater of mother earth, immoral'. So then who is it we are at war with, surely Obama needs to define it to understand it.
Of tghe 187,000,000, more than likely about 10% wake up every day and a) provide aid, funding, support, comfort, to those who b) wake up every day thinking about how best to kill anyone who opposes them, most specifically Americans. 18,000,000 people are more actively engaged and or physically active in planning the murders of millions. So are we at war with 18 million people. More so, yes, but just as the citizens of Virginia or North Carolina aided and supported the Southern forces of the Confederacy, did not mean we were at war with every civilian. You defeat the army, and the people, mostly, become compliant and passive - why? and this is where Obama has failed to grasp whatever amount of time he had in the Muslim country he was partially raised - victory is strength, and Islamic armies tend to fade into the background when defeated, while their supporters blend back into society and would pose little threat.
So of the 18 million, how many are we at war with? Again, 10-12% is the going percentage. About 2 million men (and a few women). We must, in conjunction with our friends and allies, neutralize them as threats. More specifically than neutralizing all 2 million, are about 150,000 who fund and lead these groups - they must all be killed.
Obama does not understand how this Islamic fascist ideology has corrupted his idealistic view of Islam and how McVeigh is simply a stupid example to use.
Islam respects strength. It does not respect enemies who are weak. So, Obama would argue, let us not be enemies. But we are to 187,000,000, and they will never think differently - NEVER, no matter how many naive and foolish speeches you give to Muslims. I could care less what the other 1 billion think, they are irrelevant. The 187,000,000 have taken control of Islam, for all intents and purposes, and appealing to the love in their hearts will NEVER change the reality.
Nor will it save the hundreds of thousands of American lives.
Islam
If you are ever in Toronto
Restaurant promotes sex in its bathrooms
February 03, 2010
thestar.ca
Rene Johnston
Toronto Star
Mildred's Temple Kitchen is inviting customers to have sex in its bathrooms.
The Valentine's weekend promotion takes uncomfortable but electrifying sex from the close confines of an airplane and transfers it to the unisex stalls of the Hanna Ave. restaurant.
The Liberty Village restaurant proposes its modern bathrooms become one of the "101 places to have sex before you die."
Mildred's has always elicited a certain response. One customer, who didn't want to be named, remembers going to a wedding at the eatery's old location and seeing a copy of the Kama Sutra in the bathroom.
"They invite it," said the customer.
This time, the invitation is explicit. On its website, Mildred's asks: "Have you given any thought to moving beyond the bedroom?
"Check out Mildred's Sexy Bathrooms throughout the weekend of Big Love. You get the picture."
Actually, the picture is clouded by practicalities. Is the restaurant supplying condoms? What about the health risks of body fluids? And who's cleaning up?
"We've always had little trysts in our bathrooms," says chef/co-owner Donna Dooher, pointing to lingering weekday lunches as a popular time. "We're taking it to the next level on Valentine's weekend."
The restaurant's four bathrooms light up outside when occupied. Staff have learned to watch the light flicker twice when two customers enter the same bathroom, usually a few minutes apart.
Toronto Public Health says as long as there's no sex in the kitchen and the restaurant keeps its washrooms clean and sanitized, it's not fussed. "As far as bodily fluids, it's pretty much similar to the other human functions going on in there," says Jim Chan, manager of the food safety program.
Dooher says customers must bring their own condoms but she's hiring a maid to tidy the washrooms that weekend. "She'll be there with her feather duster and cleaning supplies."
At least diners aren't encouraged to use furry handcuffs, part of a $55 "naughty love hamper," while at Mildred's. "Best to savour and enjoy (those) long after you leave the restaurant," the restaurant says.
sex
February 03, 2010
thestar.ca
Rene Johnston
Toronto Star
Mildred's Temple Kitchen is inviting customers to have sex in its bathrooms.
The Valentine's weekend promotion takes uncomfortable but electrifying sex from the close confines of an airplane and transfers it to the unisex stalls of the Hanna Ave. restaurant.
The Liberty Village restaurant proposes its modern bathrooms become one of the "101 places to have sex before you die."
Mildred's has always elicited a certain response. One customer, who didn't want to be named, remembers going to a wedding at the eatery's old location and seeing a copy of the Kama Sutra in the bathroom.
"They invite it," said the customer.
This time, the invitation is explicit. On its website, Mildred's asks: "Have you given any thought to moving beyond the bedroom?
"Check out Mildred's Sexy Bathrooms throughout the weekend of Big Love. You get the picture."
Actually, the picture is clouded by practicalities. Is the restaurant supplying condoms? What about the health risks of body fluids? And who's cleaning up?
"We've always had little trysts in our bathrooms," says chef/co-owner Donna Dooher, pointing to lingering weekday lunches as a popular time. "We're taking it to the next level on Valentine's weekend."
The restaurant's four bathrooms light up outside when occupied. Staff have learned to watch the light flicker twice when two customers enter the same bathroom, usually a few minutes apart.
Toronto Public Health says as long as there's no sex in the kitchen and the restaurant keeps its washrooms clean and sanitized, it's not fussed. "As far as bodily fluids, it's pretty much similar to the other human functions going on in there," says Jim Chan, manager of the food safety program.
Dooher says customers must bring their own condoms but she's hiring a maid to tidy the washrooms that weekend. "She'll be there with her feather duster and cleaning supplies."
At least diners aren't encouraged to use furry handcuffs, part of a $55 "naughty love hamper," while at Mildred's. "Best to savour and enjoy (those) long after you leave the restaurant," the restaurant says.
sex
Terrorists and their breast implants.
Do I give the source of this article complete trust? Not really. BUT, for 8 years al qaida and others have been working and thinking about ways to thwart Western security perimeters. There really are not many ways to break security. The one method I believe still doable - something within the body. Either someone swallows something that will take 50-60 minutes to dissolve in the acid in the stomach, and once exposed to the acid would ignite or release gas or explode. Perhaps you swallow two balloons - one with the explosive and one with the stuff that will ignite it when the balloon dissolves, or some variation on that. Another option - surgically implant something. The detonator would be the only question - how to detonate it. I don't have much imagination so I can't figure that one, but ... al qaida spends 24/7 pushing their imaginations to the limit.
Bosom bombers: Women have explosive breast implants
Authorities alarmed by possibility of surgically placed explosives
February 01, 2010
10:16 pm Eastern
WorldNetDaily
LONDON – Agents for Britain's MI5 intelligence service have discovered that Muslim doctors trained at some of Britain's leading teaching hospitals have returned to their own countries to fit surgical implants filled with explosives, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery. The lethal explosives – usually PETN (pentaerythritol Tetrabitrate) – are inserted during the operation inside the plastic shapes. The breast is then sewn up.
Similar surgery has been performed on male suicide bombers. In their cases, the explosives are inserted in the appendix area or in a buttock. Both are parts of the body that diabetics use to inject themselves with their prescribed drugs.
The discovery of these methods was made after the London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came close to blowing up an airliner on Christmas Day with explosives he had stuffed inside his underpants.
Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.
Hours after he had failed, GCHQ – Britain's worldwide eavesdropping "spy in the sky" agency – began to pick up "chatter" emanating from Pakistan and Yemen that alerted MI5 to the creation of the lethal implants.
A hand-picked team was appointed by Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, to investigate the threat. He described it as "one that can circumvent our defense."
Top surgeons who work in the National Health Service confirmed the feasibility of the explosive implants.
In a report to Evans, one said:
"Properly inserted the implant would be virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines. You would need to subject a suspect to a sophisticated X-ray. Given that the explosive would be inserted in a sealed plastic sachet, and would be a small amount, would make it all the more impossible to spot it with the usual body scanner."
Explosive experts at Britain's Porton Down biological and chemical warfare research center told MI5 that a sachet containing as little as five ounces of PETN when activated would blow "a considerable hole" in an airline's skin which would guarantee it would crash.
terrorists
Bosom bombers: Women have explosive breast implants
Authorities alarmed by possibility of surgically placed explosives
February 01, 2010
10:16 pm Eastern
WorldNetDaily
LONDON – Agents for Britain's MI5 intelligence service have discovered that Muslim doctors trained at some of Britain's leading teaching hospitals have returned to their own countries to fit surgical implants filled with explosives, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery. The lethal explosives – usually PETN (pentaerythritol Tetrabitrate) – are inserted during the operation inside the plastic shapes. The breast is then sewn up.
Similar surgery has been performed on male suicide bombers. In their cases, the explosives are inserted in the appendix area or in a buttock. Both are parts of the body that diabetics use to inject themselves with their prescribed drugs.
The discovery of these methods was made after the London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came close to blowing up an airliner on Christmas Day with explosives he had stuffed inside his underpants.
Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.
Hours after he had failed, GCHQ – Britain's worldwide eavesdropping "spy in the sky" agency – began to pick up "chatter" emanating from Pakistan and Yemen that alerted MI5 to the creation of the lethal implants.
A hand-picked team was appointed by Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, to investigate the threat. He described it as "one that can circumvent our defense."
Top surgeons who work in the National Health Service confirmed the feasibility of the explosive implants.
In a report to Evans, one said:
"Properly inserted the implant would be virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines. You would need to subject a suspect to a sophisticated X-ray. Given that the explosive would be inserted in a sealed plastic sachet, and would be a small amount, would make it all the more impossible to spot it with the usual body scanner."
Explosive experts at Britain's Porton Down biological and chemical warfare research center told MI5 that a sachet containing as little as five ounces of PETN when activated would blow "a considerable hole" in an airline's skin which would guarantee it would crash.
terrorists
Thomas defends Supreme Court Decision
February 4, 2010
Justice Defends Ruling on Finance
By ADAM LIPTAK
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — In expansive remarks at a law school in Florida, Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday vigorously defended the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decision.
And Justice Thomas explained that he did not attend State of the Union addresses — he missed the dust-up when President Obama used the occasion last week to criticize the court’s decision — because the gatherings had turned so partisan.
Justice Thomas responded to several questions from students at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Fla., concerning the campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. By a 5-to-4 vote, with Justice Thomas in the majority, the court ruled last month that corporations had a First Amendment right to spend money to support or oppose political candidates.
“I found it fascinating that the people who were editorializing against it were The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company,” Justice Thomas said. “These are corporations.”
The part of the McCain-Feingold law struck down in Citizens United contained an exemption for news reports, commentaries and editorials. But Justice Thomas said that reflected a legislative choice rather than a constitutional principle.
He added that the history of Congressional regulation of corporate involvement in politics had a dark side, pointing to the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in 1907.
“Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation,” Justice Thomas said, referring to Senator Benjamin Tillman. “Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.”
It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as “some sort of beatific action.”
Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process.
“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said. “If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”
“But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?” Justice Thomas asked, suggesting that the answer must be the same.
Asked about his attitude toward the two decisions overruled in Citizens United, he said, “If it’s wrong, the ultimate precedent is the Constitution.”
Justice Thomas would not directly address the controversy over Mr. Obama’s criticism of the Citizens United ruling or Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s mouthed “not true” in response. But he did say he had stopped attending the addresses.
“I don’t go because it has become so partisan and it’s very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there,” he said, adding that “there’s a lot that you don’t hear on TV — the catcalls, the whooping and hollering and under-the-breath comments.”
“One of the consequences,” he added in an apparent reference to last week’s address, “is now the court becomes part of the conversation, if you want to call it that, in the speeches. It’s just an example of why I don’t go.”
politics
Justice Defends Ruling on Finance
By ADAM LIPTAK
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — In expansive remarks at a law school in Florida, Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday vigorously defended the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decision.
And Justice Thomas explained that he did not attend State of the Union addresses — he missed the dust-up when President Obama used the occasion last week to criticize the court’s decision — because the gatherings had turned so partisan.
Justice Thomas responded to several questions from students at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Fla., concerning the campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. By a 5-to-4 vote, with Justice Thomas in the majority, the court ruled last month that corporations had a First Amendment right to spend money to support or oppose political candidates.
“I found it fascinating that the people who were editorializing against it were The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company,” Justice Thomas said. “These are corporations.”
The part of the McCain-Feingold law struck down in Citizens United contained an exemption for news reports, commentaries and editorials. But Justice Thomas said that reflected a legislative choice rather than a constitutional principle.
He added that the history of Congressional regulation of corporate involvement in politics had a dark side, pointing to the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in 1907.
“Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation,” Justice Thomas said, referring to Senator Benjamin Tillman. “Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.”
It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as “some sort of beatific action.”
Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process.
“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said. “If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”
“But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?” Justice Thomas asked, suggesting that the answer must be the same.
Asked about his attitude toward the two decisions overruled in Citizens United, he said, “If it’s wrong, the ultimate precedent is the Constitution.”
Justice Thomas would not directly address the controversy over Mr. Obama’s criticism of the Citizens United ruling or Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s mouthed “not true” in response. But he did say he had stopped attending the addresses.
“I don’t go because it has become so partisan and it’s very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there,” he said, adding that “there’s a lot that you don’t hear on TV — the catcalls, the whooping and hollering and under-the-breath comments.”
“One of the consequences,” he added in an apparent reference to last week’s address, “is now the court becomes part of the conversation, if you want to call it that, in the speeches. It’s just an example of why I don’t go.”
politics
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Live to 100 Plus. It's Coming Soon, to a Doctor's Office Near You.
Would we want to. What if we all could, and if we all did. Then what?
At 50 we would be half way, 60 we would have 40 more years to go. We could most certainly accomplish a great deal in our lives (if we so chose). But ...
Super-drug could eradicate Alzheimer's and diabetes and let us live into our 100s
By Daily Mail Reporter
03rd February 2010
Scientists are on the brink of developing a 'long-life super-drug' which could spell the end for Alzheimer's and diabetes whilst allowing people to live into their 100s.
Experts have pinpointed three genes which can extend life past 100 and prevent diseases that commonly strike in old age.
Two genes boost the production of so-called good cholesterol, which reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke, while the third prevents diabetes.
People whose DNA prominently includes these genes are also 80 per cent less likely to develop Alzheimer's, experts will reveal on BBC2's Horizon tomorrow night.
World renowned geneticist Dr Nir Barzilai said several laboratories were now in the process of creating a pill that mimics the genes and expects the first to be ready for testing within three years.
Dr Barzilai's team examined the DNA of 500 healthy Ashkenazi Jews with an average age of 100 to determine if they shared traits that could explain their longevity.
Amazingly, a third of the centenarians were either obese or life-long heavy smokers, said Dr Barzilai, a director of the Institute for Aging Research and Professor of Medicine and Molecular Genetics Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
The chances of living to 100 are one in 10,000 but the study group - which shared relatively few common ancestors - was 20 times more likely to hit the century.
New York-based Dr Barzilai told the programme that three slight variations in their common genetic make-up provided the answer, after ruling out fitness and dietary causes.
He said: 'Thirty per cent of them were obese or overweight and 30 per cent smoked two packs of cigarettes (a day) for more than 40 years.
'Because our centenarians have longevity genes, they are protected against many of the effects of the environment.
'That's why they do whatever they want to do and they get through anyhow.'
His team took blood samples from the group to examine two million genetic markers in their DNA.
Dr Barzilai said: 'We found three that seemed to be over-represented in our 100-year-olds. Two of these genes seem to be relevant to cholesterol.
'Basically, they increase good cholesterol in a significant way. There's no drug currently that does it so effectively.
'Another gene seemed to be very important in preventing diabetes.
'It seems that those who have this specific genotype are protected from Alzheimer's by about 80 per cent.'
Dr Barzilai, who is a director at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, believes his findings could have huge benefits for everyone, increase average life expectancy and cut the risk of serious illness in old age.
He added: 'The advantage of finding a gene that involves longevity is that we can just develop a drug that will imitate exactly what this gene is doing.
'The biology we're trying to uncover is that if we can imitate that, then long life can be really terrific.'
Dr Barzilai revealed that normal lifespans were usually determined by 80 per cent lifestyle choices and 20 per cent genes.
However, it is the opposite way round with centenarians, which meant the answer to their longevity was predominately down to their genes.
medical
At 50 we would be half way, 60 we would have 40 more years to go. We could most certainly accomplish a great deal in our lives (if we so chose). But ...
Super-drug could eradicate Alzheimer's and diabetes and let us live into our 100s
By Daily Mail Reporter
03rd February 2010
Scientists are on the brink of developing a 'long-life super-drug' which could spell the end for Alzheimer's and diabetes whilst allowing people to live into their 100s.
Experts have pinpointed three genes which can extend life past 100 and prevent diseases that commonly strike in old age.
Two genes boost the production of so-called good cholesterol, which reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke, while the third prevents diabetes.
People whose DNA prominently includes these genes are also 80 per cent less likely to develop Alzheimer's, experts will reveal on BBC2's Horizon tomorrow night.
World renowned geneticist Dr Nir Barzilai said several laboratories were now in the process of creating a pill that mimics the genes and expects the first to be ready for testing within three years.
Dr Barzilai's team examined the DNA of 500 healthy Ashkenazi Jews with an average age of 100 to determine if they shared traits that could explain their longevity.
Amazingly, a third of the centenarians were either obese or life-long heavy smokers, said Dr Barzilai, a director of the Institute for Aging Research and Professor of Medicine and Molecular Genetics Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
The chances of living to 100 are one in 10,000 but the study group - which shared relatively few common ancestors - was 20 times more likely to hit the century.
New York-based Dr Barzilai told the programme that three slight variations in their common genetic make-up provided the answer, after ruling out fitness and dietary causes.
He said: 'Thirty per cent of them were obese or overweight and 30 per cent smoked two packs of cigarettes (a day) for more than 40 years.
'Because our centenarians have longevity genes, they are protected against many of the effects of the environment.
'That's why they do whatever they want to do and they get through anyhow.'
His team took blood samples from the group to examine two million genetic markers in their DNA.
Dr Barzilai said: 'We found three that seemed to be over-represented in our 100-year-olds. Two of these genes seem to be relevant to cholesterol.
'Basically, they increase good cholesterol in a significant way. There's no drug currently that does it so effectively.
'Another gene seemed to be very important in preventing diabetes.
'It seems that those who have this specific genotype are protected from Alzheimer's by about 80 per cent.'
Dr Barzilai, who is a director at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, believes his findings could have huge benefits for everyone, increase average life expectancy and cut the risk of serious illness in old age.
He added: 'The advantage of finding a gene that involves longevity is that we can just develop a drug that will imitate exactly what this gene is doing.
'The biology we're trying to uncover is that if we can imitate that, then long life can be really terrific.'
Dr Barzilai revealed that normal lifespans were usually determined by 80 per cent lifestyle choices and 20 per cent genes.
However, it is the opposite way round with centenarians, which meant the answer to their longevity was predominately down to their genes.
medical
Stranger than Fiction
Daily Mail
February 2, 2010
Chinese Girl, 9, gives birth
[...]
The youngest reported mother in the world - and the most bizarre of all young pregnancy cases - is five-year-old Lina Medina of Peru, who gave birth to a 6lb son named Gerardo in a Caesarean operation in 1939.
In 1957 another Peruvian girl, aged nine, gave birth to a girl weighing just over 6lb and, curiously, it was in 2006 that yet another Peruvian girl, aged eight, gave birth to a 4lb 4oz girl.
Several other girls aged nine, from Thailand, Singapore, Rwanda and Brazil, have also given birth.
Mothers aged as young as 10 and 11 have also become an increasing occurrence.
The youngest mother in Britain is believed to have been 11 when she got pregnant and 12 years old when she gave birth.
babies
February 2, 2010
Chinese Girl, 9, gives birth
[...]
The youngest reported mother in the world - and the most bizarre of all young pregnancy cases - is five-year-old Lina Medina of Peru, who gave birth to a 6lb son named Gerardo in a Caesarean operation in 1939.
In 1957 another Peruvian girl, aged nine, gave birth to a girl weighing just over 6lb and, curiously, it was in 2006 that yet another Peruvian girl, aged eight, gave birth to a 4lb 4oz girl.
Several other girls aged nine, from Thailand, Singapore, Rwanda and Brazil, have also given birth.
Mothers aged as young as 10 and 11 have also become an increasing occurrence.
The youngest mother in Britain is believed to have been 11 when she got pregnant and 12 years old when she gave birth.
babies
China: Promise Broken by Obama - Worse than Ever
Chinese diplomat: Ties with US deteriorating since Obama
In a special interview with Ynet, deputy Chinese ambassador to Israel presents communist regime's outlook on crisis with Washington, Middle East and Google affair. In respect to Iran, Zhang Xiao'an says sanctions won't help
Ronen Medzini
02.02.10
Israel News
Ever since Obama was elected, the administration has been trying to undermine relations, the deputy Chinese ambassador to Israel said in a special interview with Ynet on the heels of the dispute that has unraveled between the communist regime and the United States.
While the US is trying to garner Chinese support to impose sanctions on Iran, the Chinese official said that the recent tensions could harm political cooperation.
Deputy Ambassador Zhang Xiao'an outlined to Ynet the Chinese perspective on the slump in ties between the US and China. Looking back, she said, China's ties with new American president usually don't start off so well, but gradually improve with time.
She said that now, there is an opposite process – after Obama was elected last year, ties between China and the United States got off on the right foot, and ever since have been deteriorating.
US President Barack Obama visited Beijing last November and met with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jinato. The visit was meant to improve ties between the two countries, but a line of disputes between the two superpowers followed instead.
This includes a dispute over the US-Taiwan weapons deal, the Dalai Lama's planned visit in Washington, matters pertaining to trade, exchange rates, human rights and the Google affair.
Zhang said that she hoped the US would stands behind Obama's statements in China, who vowed that his country would respect China's interests and that the sensitive problems and issues would be solved via dialogue and cooperation.
Obama declared on his first day in office that he plans to boost ties with China, and went so far as to say that by the end of 2009, the situation would be "better than ever".
Danger in sanctions
Zhang addressed the issue of China's objection to imposing sanctions on Iran and noted that her country supports the international stance against the development of Iranian nuclear weapons. She added that nevertheless, each country has the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, which is applies for Iran as well.
According to Zhang, sanctions against Iran could achieve the opposite of the intended effect in pushing the Islamic Republic into a corner from which it will be hard to go back.
She noted that sanctions could also lead to a conflict and therefore China supports a different approach based on dialogue and consultation. She pointed to the situation in Iraq as an example of the usefulness of such steps and noted that many countries in the UN have realized that sanctions won't work.
Zhang does not believe the recent tensions with Washington will reflect on relations with Israel, which she described as good. She said that the tensions relate to outside factors and noted that China has good relations with Iran. Zhang further added that Beijing strives for positive relations with all countries.
The Chinese are trying to avoid using the word crisis in describing their relations with the US. Zhang said that there have been ups and downs to the relationship throughout the years but stressed that despite occasional differences in opinion there is also cooperation between the countries.
US-Taiwan ties
China claims to sovereignty over Taiwan which runs an independent regime supported by the West and US since 1949. Zhang stressed that the relations with Taiwan have always been the most important and the most sensitive, and could create obstacles. She noted that the US and China have agreed to respect each other's interests and that the matter of Taiwan is one of sovereignty and territorial integrity which the US should respect.
The US has recently decided to sell arms to Taiwan, which prompted Chinese protest. Zhang said that the US's decision amounts to a harsh violation of the common principles between the two countries and noted that the Chinese people could not accept such conduct.
The Chinese envoy further added that the deal has undermined the relations and may effect political cooperation.
She said that China has decided to halt the exchange of military programs with the US, reject security strategy consultation and impose sanctions on the American companies involved in the arms sale to Taiwan.
In respect to the crisis with Google, the Chinese diplomat rejected criticism on web censorship. She noted that the Chinese internet was open and that the country is rated first in the world in terms of internet use with its 384 million net surfers. She further added that China has 3.69 million websites and over 180 million bloggs.
Zhang believes the matter is a commercial issue turned political. She stated that China's policy was to develop the internet and pointed to data which illustrate the speed of development.
Nevertheless, she stressed that any company, local or foreign must obey the Chinese law and said the issue was also one of respect for local culture in addition the legal aspect.
Obama and china
In a special interview with Ynet, deputy Chinese ambassador to Israel presents communist regime's outlook on crisis with Washington, Middle East and Google affair. In respect to Iran, Zhang Xiao'an says sanctions won't help
Ronen Medzini
02.02.10
Israel News
Ever since Obama was elected, the administration has been trying to undermine relations, the deputy Chinese ambassador to Israel said in a special interview with Ynet on the heels of the dispute that has unraveled between the communist regime and the United States.
While the US is trying to garner Chinese support to impose sanctions on Iran, the Chinese official said that the recent tensions could harm political cooperation.
Deputy Ambassador Zhang Xiao'an outlined to Ynet the Chinese perspective on the slump in ties between the US and China. Looking back, she said, China's ties with new American president usually don't start off so well, but gradually improve with time.
She said that now, there is an opposite process – after Obama was elected last year, ties between China and the United States got off on the right foot, and ever since have been deteriorating.
US President Barack Obama visited Beijing last November and met with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jinato. The visit was meant to improve ties between the two countries, but a line of disputes between the two superpowers followed instead.
This includes a dispute over the US-Taiwan weapons deal, the Dalai Lama's planned visit in Washington, matters pertaining to trade, exchange rates, human rights and the Google affair.
Zhang said that she hoped the US would stands behind Obama's statements in China, who vowed that his country would respect China's interests and that the sensitive problems and issues would be solved via dialogue and cooperation.
Obama declared on his first day in office that he plans to boost ties with China, and went so far as to say that by the end of 2009, the situation would be "better than ever".
Danger in sanctions
Zhang addressed the issue of China's objection to imposing sanctions on Iran and noted that her country supports the international stance against the development of Iranian nuclear weapons. She added that nevertheless, each country has the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, which is applies for Iran as well.
According to Zhang, sanctions against Iran could achieve the opposite of the intended effect in pushing the Islamic Republic into a corner from which it will be hard to go back.
She noted that sanctions could also lead to a conflict and therefore China supports a different approach based on dialogue and consultation. She pointed to the situation in Iraq as an example of the usefulness of such steps and noted that many countries in the UN have realized that sanctions won't work.
Zhang does not believe the recent tensions with Washington will reflect on relations with Israel, which she described as good. She said that the tensions relate to outside factors and noted that China has good relations with Iran. Zhang further added that Beijing strives for positive relations with all countries.
The Chinese are trying to avoid using the word crisis in describing their relations with the US. Zhang said that there have been ups and downs to the relationship throughout the years but stressed that despite occasional differences in opinion there is also cooperation between the countries.
US-Taiwan ties
China claims to sovereignty over Taiwan which runs an independent regime supported by the West and US since 1949. Zhang stressed that the relations with Taiwan have always been the most important and the most sensitive, and could create obstacles. She noted that the US and China have agreed to respect each other's interests and that the matter of Taiwan is one of sovereignty and territorial integrity which the US should respect.
The US has recently decided to sell arms to Taiwan, which prompted Chinese protest. Zhang said that the US's decision amounts to a harsh violation of the common principles between the two countries and noted that the Chinese people could not accept such conduct.
The Chinese envoy further added that the deal has undermined the relations and may effect political cooperation.
She said that China has decided to halt the exchange of military programs with the US, reject security strategy consultation and impose sanctions on the American companies involved in the arms sale to Taiwan.
In respect to the crisis with Google, the Chinese diplomat rejected criticism on web censorship. She noted that the Chinese internet was open and that the country is rated first in the world in terms of internet use with its 384 million net surfers. She further added that China has 3.69 million websites and over 180 million bloggs.
Zhang believes the matter is a commercial issue turned political. She stated that China's policy was to develop the internet and pointed to data which illustrate the speed of development.
Nevertheless, she stressed that any company, local or foreign must obey the Chinese law and said the issue was also one of respect for local culture in addition the legal aspect.
Obama and china
Canadian Health Care: Go to the US Whenever Possible.
N.L. Premier Williams set to have heart surgery in U.S.
Kenyon Wallace, National Post
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States.
Deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news conference Tuesday, but would not reveal the location of the operation or how it would be paid for.
"He has gone to a renowned expert in the procedure that he needs to have done," said Ms. Dunderdale, who will become acting premier while Mr. Williams is away for three to 12 weeks.
"In consultation with his own doctors, he's decided to go that route."
Mr. Williams' decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada's health-care system.
"It was never an option offered to him to have this procedure done in this province," said Ms. Dunderdale, refusing to answer whether the procedure could be done elsewhere in Canada.
Mr. Williams, 59, has said nothing of his health in the media.
"The premier has made a commitment that once he's through this procedure and he's well enough, he's going to talk about the whole process and share as much detail with you as he's comfortable to do at that time," she said.
Ms. Dunderdale wouldn't say where in the U.S. Mr. Williams is seeking treatment.
A popular Progressive Conservative premier, Mr. Williams has also seen his share of controversy. During the 2008 federal election, Mr. Williams vehemently opposed the Conservative government, launching his "Anything But Conservative" -- which has been credited with keeping the Tories from winning any seats in the province.
He's also drawn criticism for his support of the seal hunt.
MEDICAL
Kenyon Wallace, National Post
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States.
Deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news conference Tuesday, but would not reveal the location of the operation or how it would be paid for.
"He has gone to a renowned expert in the procedure that he needs to have done," said Ms. Dunderdale, who will become acting premier while Mr. Williams is away for three to 12 weeks.
"In consultation with his own doctors, he's decided to go that route."
Mr. Williams' decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada's health-care system.
"It was never an option offered to him to have this procedure done in this province," said Ms. Dunderdale, refusing to answer whether the procedure could be done elsewhere in Canada.
Mr. Williams, 59, has said nothing of his health in the media.
"The premier has made a commitment that once he's through this procedure and he's well enough, he's going to talk about the whole process and share as much detail with you as he's comfortable to do at that time," she said.
Ms. Dunderdale wouldn't say where in the U.S. Mr. Williams is seeking treatment.
A popular Progressive Conservative premier, Mr. Williams has also seen his share of controversy. During the 2008 federal election, Mr. Williams vehemently opposed the Conservative government, launching his "Anything But Conservative" -- which has been credited with keeping the Tories from winning any seats in the province.
He's also drawn criticism for his support of the seal hunt.
MEDICAL
Taxes, Taxes, Everyone Gets to Pay More Taxes
All this - 'helping the little guy' sure looks like it will hurt a lot. Helping the poor out ... of their money, seems to be more true. More people will now pay taxes than ever before - all below the 'rich' level.
Backdoor taxes to hit middle class
by Terri Cullen
Mon Feb 1, 4:09 pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters.com) --The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.
In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.
While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.
The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.
If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.
Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 -- though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.
Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a "patch" that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households, but lawmakers have been reluctant to repeal it because it has become a key source of revenue.
Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year's levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy -- the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly.
Middle-class families also will find fewer tax breaks available to them in 2010 if other popular tax provisions are allowed to expire. Among them:
* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;
* The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies;
* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;
* Individuals who don't itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;
* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.
obama
Backdoor taxes to hit middle class
by Terri Cullen
Mon Feb 1, 4:09 pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters.com) --The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.
In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.
While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.
The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.
If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.
Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 -- though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.
Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a "patch" that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households, but lawmakers have been reluctant to repeal it because it has become a key source of revenue.
Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year's levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy -- the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly.
Middle-class families also will find fewer tax breaks available to them in 2010 if other popular tax provisions are allowed to expire. Among them:
* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;
* The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies;
* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;
* Individuals who don't itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;
* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.
obama
Monday, February 1, 2010
Global Warming: The Ice Has Melted, the Fish have Gone, All is Lost.
Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish And Icebergs Melt
Washington Post
AP
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen , Norway .
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
******************************************
The problem witrh the above article, sent to me in an email is ...
... it's true. It was printed in The Washington Post, from an AP story, on November 2, 1922.
Washington Post
AP
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen , Norway .
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
******************************************
The problem witrh the above article, sent to me in an email is ...
... it's true. It was printed in The Washington Post, from an AP story, on November 2, 1922.
global warming
UN CLIMATE CHANGE - Based on a Student Paper
UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and magazine article
The United Nations' expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world's mountain tops on a student's dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.
By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent and Rebecca Lefort
The Telegraph.co.uk
30 Jan 2010
The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.
The IPCC's remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.
In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.
However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.
The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master's degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.
The revelations, uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, have raised fresh questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, which was published in 2007.
It comes after officials for the panel were forced earlier this month to retract inaccurate claims in the IPCC's report about the melting of Himalayan glaciers.
Sceptics have seized upon the mistakes to cast doubt over the validity of the IPCC and have called for the panel to be disbanded.
This week scientists from around the world leapt to the defence of the IPCC, insisting that despite the errors, which they describe as minor, the majority of the science presented in the IPCC report is sound and its conclusions are unaffected.
But some researchers have expressed exasperation at the IPCC's use of unsubstantiated claims and sources outside of the scientific literature.
Professor Richard Tol, one of the report's authors who is based at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, Ireland, said: "These are essentially a collection of anecdotes.
"Why did they do this? It is quite astounding. Although there have probably been no policy decisions made on the basis of this, it is illustrative of how sloppy Working Group Two (the panel of experts within the IPCC responsible for drawing up this section of the report) has been.
"There is no way current climbers and mountain guides can give anecdotal evidence back to the 1900s, so what they claim is complete nonsense."
The IPCC report, which is published every six years, is used by government's worldwide to inform policy decisions that affect billions of people.
The claims about disappearing mountain ice were contained within a table entitled "Selected observed effects due to changes in the cryosphere produced by warming".
It states that reductions in mountain ice have been observed from the loss of ice climbs in the Andes, Alps and in Africa between 1900 and 2000.
The report also states that the section is intended to "assess studies that have been published since the TAR (Third Assessment Report) of observed changes and their effects".
But neither the dissertation or the magazine article cited as sources for this information were ever subject to the rigorous scientific review process that research published in scientific journals must undergo.
The magazine article, which was written by Mark Bowen, a climber and author of two books on climate change, appeared in Climbing magazine in 2002. It quoted anecdotal evidence from climbers of retreating glaciers and the loss of ice from climbs since the 1970s.
Mr Bowen said: "I am surprised that they have cited an article from a climbing magazine, but there is no reason why anecdotal evidence from climbers should be disregarded as they are spending a great deal of time in places that other people rarely go and so notice the changes."
The dissertation paper, written by professional mountain guide and climate change campaigner Dario-Andri Schworer while he was studying for a geography degree, quotes observations from interviews with around 80 mountain guides in the Bernina region of the Swiss Alps.
Experts claim that loss of ice climbs are a poor indicator of a reduction in mountain ice as climbers can knock ice down and damage ice falls with their axes and crampons.
The IPCC has faced growing criticism over the sources it used in its last report after it emerged the panel had used unsubstantiated figures on glacial melting in the Himalayas that were contained within a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report.
It can be revealed that the IPCC report made use of 16 non-peer reviewed WWF reports.
One claim, which stated that coral reefs near mangrove forests contained up to 25 times more fish numbers than those without mangroves nearby, quoted a feature article on the WWF website.
In fact the data contained within the WWF article originated from a paper published in 2004 in the respected journal Nature.
In another example a WWF paper on forest fires was used to illustrate the impact of reduced rainfall in the Amazon rainforest, but the data was from another Nature paper published in 1999.
When The Sunday Telegraph contacted the lead scientists behind the two papers in Nature, they expressed surprise that their research was not cited directly but said the IPCC had accurately represented their work.
The chair of the IPCC Rajendra Pachauri has faced mounting pressure and calls for his resignation amid the growing controversy over the error on glacier melting and use of unreliable sources of information.
A survey of 400 authors and contributors to the IPCC report showed, however, that the majority still support Mr Pachauri and the panel's vice chairs. They also insisted the overall findings of the report are robust despite the minor errors.
But many expressed concern at the use of non-peer reviewed information in the reports and called for a tightening of the guidelines on how information can be used.
The Met Office, which has seven researchers who contributed to the report including Professor Martin Parry who was co-chair of the working group responsible for the part of the report that contained the glacier errors, said: "The IPCC should continue to ensure that its review process is as robust and transparent as possible, that it draws only from the peer-reviewed literature, and that uncertainties in the science and projections are clearly expressed."
Roger Sedjo, a senior research fellow at the US research organisation Resources for the Future who also contributed to the IPCC's latest report, added: "The IPCC is, unfortunately, a highly political organisation with most of the secretariat bordering on climate advocacy.
"It needs to develop a more balanced and indeed scientifically sceptical behaviour pattern. The organisation tend to select the most negative studies ignoring more positive alternatives."
The IPCC failed to respond to questions about the inclusion of unreliable sources in its report but it has insisted over the past week that despite minor errors, the findings of the report are still robust and consistent with the underlying science.
lobal warming
The United Nations' expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world's mountain tops on a student's dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.
By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent and Rebecca Lefort
The Telegraph.co.uk
30 Jan 2010
The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.
The IPCC's remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.
In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.
However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.
The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master's degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.
The revelations, uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, have raised fresh questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, which was published in 2007.
It comes after officials for the panel were forced earlier this month to retract inaccurate claims in the IPCC's report about the melting of Himalayan glaciers.
Sceptics have seized upon the mistakes to cast doubt over the validity of the IPCC and have called for the panel to be disbanded.
This week scientists from around the world leapt to the defence of the IPCC, insisting that despite the errors, which they describe as minor, the majority of the science presented in the IPCC report is sound and its conclusions are unaffected.
But some researchers have expressed exasperation at the IPCC's use of unsubstantiated claims and sources outside of the scientific literature.
Professor Richard Tol, one of the report's authors who is based at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, Ireland, said: "These are essentially a collection of anecdotes.
"Why did they do this? It is quite astounding. Although there have probably been no policy decisions made on the basis of this, it is illustrative of how sloppy Working Group Two (the panel of experts within the IPCC responsible for drawing up this section of the report) has been.
"There is no way current climbers and mountain guides can give anecdotal evidence back to the 1900s, so what they claim is complete nonsense."
The IPCC report, which is published every six years, is used by government's worldwide to inform policy decisions that affect billions of people.
The claims about disappearing mountain ice were contained within a table entitled "Selected observed effects due to changes in the cryosphere produced by warming".
It states that reductions in mountain ice have been observed from the loss of ice climbs in the Andes, Alps and in Africa between 1900 and 2000.
The report also states that the section is intended to "assess studies that have been published since the TAR (Third Assessment Report) of observed changes and their effects".
But neither the dissertation or the magazine article cited as sources for this information were ever subject to the rigorous scientific review process that research published in scientific journals must undergo.
The magazine article, which was written by Mark Bowen, a climber and author of two books on climate change, appeared in Climbing magazine in 2002. It quoted anecdotal evidence from climbers of retreating glaciers and the loss of ice from climbs since the 1970s.
Mr Bowen said: "I am surprised that they have cited an article from a climbing magazine, but there is no reason why anecdotal evidence from climbers should be disregarded as they are spending a great deal of time in places that other people rarely go and so notice the changes."
The dissertation paper, written by professional mountain guide and climate change campaigner Dario-Andri Schworer while he was studying for a geography degree, quotes observations from interviews with around 80 mountain guides in the Bernina region of the Swiss Alps.
Experts claim that loss of ice climbs are a poor indicator of a reduction in mountain ice as climbers can knock ice down and damage ice falls with their axes and crampons.
The IPCC has faced growing criticism over the sources it used in its last report after it emerged the panel had used unsubstantiated figures on glacial melting in the Himalayas that were contained within a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report.
It can be revealed that the IPCC report made use of 16 non-peer reviewed WWF reports.
One claim, which stated that coral reefs near mangrove forests contained up to 25 times more fish numbers than those without mangroves nearby, quoted a feature article on the WWF website.
In fact the data contained within the WWF article originated from a paper published in 2004 in the respected journal Nature.
In another example a WWF paper on forest fires was used to illustrate the impact of reduced rainfall in the Amazon rainforest, but the data was from another Nature paper published in 1999.
When The Sunday Telegraph contacted the lead scientists behind the two papers in Nature, they expressed surprise that their research was not cited directly but said the IPCC had accurately represented their work.
The chair of the IPCC Rajendra Pachauri has faced mounting pressure and calls for his resignation amid the growing controversy over the error on glacier melting and use of unreliable sources of information.
A survey of 400 authors and contributors to the IPCC report showed, however, that the majority still support Mr Pachauri and the panel's vice chairs. They also insisted the overall findings of the report are robust despite the minor errors.
But many expressed concern at the use of non-peer reviewed information in the reports and called for a tightening of the guidelines on how information can be used.
The Met Office, which has seven researchers who contributed to the report including Professor Martin Parry who was co-chair of the working group responsible for the part of the report that contained the glacier errors, said: "The IPCC should continue to ensure that its review process is as robust and transparent as possible, that it draws only from the peer-reviewed literature, and that uncertainties in the science and projections are clearly expressed."
Roger Sedjo, a senior research fellow at the US research organisation Resources for the Future who also contributed to the IPCC's latest report, added: "The IPCC is, unfortunately, a highly political organisation with most of the secretariat bordering on climate advocacy.
"It needs to develop a more balanced and indeed scientifically sceptical behaviour pattern. The organisation tend to select the most negative studies ignoring more positive alternatives."
The IPCC failed to respond to questions about the inclusion of unreliable sources in its report but it has insisted over the past week that despite minor errors, the findings of the report are still robust and consistent with the underlying science.
lobal warming
More Global Warming Problems
Environment Climate change Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws
Exclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures
Fred Pearce
guardian.co.uk
Monday 1 February 2010
Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.
A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.
Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.
Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up".
The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science.
The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN's embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades.
Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague had serious concerns about the affair.
It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist.
The revelations come at a torrid time for climate science, with the IPPC suffering heavy criticism for its use of information that had not been rigorously checked – in particular a false claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 – and UEA having been criticised last week by the deputy information commissioner for refusing valid requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full.
The temperature data from the Chinese weather stations measured the warming there over the past half century and appeared in a 1990 paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which was cited by the IPCC's latest report in 2007.
Climate change sceptics asked the UEA, via FOI requests, for location data for the 84 weather stations in eastern China, half of which were urban and half rural.
Where are 42 of the weather stations and why do they keep moving about? It is relevant if data is taken from them as to weather / temperatures.
The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang's 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities.
The IPCC's 2007 report used the study to justify the claim that "any urban-related trend" in global temperatures was small. Jones was one of two "coordinating lead authors" for the relevant chapter.
The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang's work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. "Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?" he asked Jones. He continued: "Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?"
Jones said he was not able to comment on the story.
Wang said: "I have been exonerated by my university on all the charges. When we started on the paper we had all the station location details in order to identify our network, but we cannot find them any more.
"Some of the location changes were probably only a few metres, and where they were more we corrected for them."
In an interview with the Observer on Sunday Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, warned of the danger of a public backlash against mainstream climate science over claims that scientists manipulated data. He declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans. "It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there," he said.
Last week the Information Commissioner's Office – the body that administers the Freedom of Information Act – said the University of East Anglia had flouted the rules in its handling of an FOI request in May 2008.
Days after receiving the request for information from the British climate change sceptic David Holland, Jones asked Prof Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the United States: "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise.
"Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same ... We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same."
The University of East Anglia says that no emails were deleted following this exchange.
global warming
Exclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures
Fred Pearce
guardian.co.uk
Monday 1 February 2010
Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.
A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.
Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.
Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up".
The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science.
The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN's embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades.
Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague had serious concerns about the affair.
It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist.
The revelations come at a torrid time for climate science, with the IPPC suffering heavy criticism for its use of information that had not been rigorously checked – in particular a false claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 – and UEA having been criticised last week by the deputy information commissioner for refusing valid requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full.
The temperature data from the Chinese weather stations measured the warming there over the past half century and appeared in a 1990 paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which was cited by the IPCC's latest report in 2007.
Climate change sceptics asked the UEA, via FOI requests, for location data for the 84 weather stations in eastern China, half of which were urban and half rural.
Where are 42 of the weather stations and why do they keep moving about? It is relevant if data is taken from them as to weather / temperatures.
The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang's 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities.
The IPCC's 2007 report used the study to justify the claim that "any urban-related trend" in global temperatures was small. Jones was one of two "coordinating lead authors" for the relevant chapter.
The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang's work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. "Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?" he asked Jones. He continued: "Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?"
Jones said he was not able to comment on the story.
Wang said: "I have been exonerated by my university on all the charges. When we started on the paper we had all the station location details in order to identify our network, but we cannot find them any more.
"Some of the location changes were probably only a few metres, and where they were more we corrected for them."
In an interview with the Observer on Sunday Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, warned of the danger of a public backlash against mainstream climate science over claims that scientists manipulated data. He declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans. "It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there," he said.
Last week the Information Commissioner's Office – the body that administers the Freedom of Information Act – said the University of East Anglia had flouted the rules in its handling of an FOI request in May 2008.
Days after receiving the request for information from the British climate change sceptic David Holland, Jones asked Prof Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the United States: "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise.
"Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same ... We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same."
The University of East Anglia says that no emails were deleted following this exchange.
global warming
Lancaster California: Muslim group files protest against a Christian community
Mayor denounced for saying Lancaster is 'growing a Christian community'
January 31, 2010
2:17 pm
Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris drew criticism from a leading Muslim group today after saying in his annual State of the City address that the high desert town was “growing a Christian community.”
"We're growing a Christian community, and don't let anybody shy away from that,” Parris told the audience of ministers gathered for his address.
“I need [Lancaster residents] standing up and saying we're a Christian community, and we're proud of that," the mayor said.
The Greater Los Angeles area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced the statement and said it plans to file a complaint about the mayor's remarks with the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department.
“Elected officials should not use their public positions to impose their religious beliefs on others," said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of CAIR.
The mayor, reached by telephone today, said his remarks did not intend to impose his faith on others, and he said he would make no apology.
“This is just about very few people wanting to get their 15 minutes of fame,” he said. “I guess they got it.”
-- Garrett Therolf
Islam
January 31, 2010
2:17 pm
Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris drew criticism from a leading Muslim group today after saying in his annual State of the City address that the high desert town was “growing a Christian community.”
"We're growing a Christian community, and don't let anybody shy away from that,” Parris told the audience of ministers gathered for his address.
“I need [Lancaster residents] standing up and saying we're a Christian community, and we're proud of that," the mayor said.
The Greater Los Angeles area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced the statement and said it plans to file a complaint about the mayor's remarks with the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department.
“Elected officials should not use their public positions to impose their religious beliefs on others," said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of CAIR.
The mayor, reached by telephone today, said his remarks did not intend to impose his faith on others, and he said he would make no apology.
“This is just about very few people wanting to get their 15 minutes of fame,” he said. “I guess they got it.”
-- Garrett Therolf
Islam
Mexico: Death Month / Year
Mexico
The first month of the new year ended with 904 drug-related murders in Mexico, which makes January 2010 the deadliest month since December 2006. The last week of the month was characterized by an abnormally high number of beheadings, 12, which took place throughout the country.
Chihuahua has been the most violent state in Mexico for more than two years, and in January 2010 it accounted for more than one-third of all the drug-related deaths during the month with 327, including the deaths of 16 individuals (many of them teenagers) at a high school house party in Ciudad Juarez that was a case of mistaken identity and location.
Sinaloa state, in 2009 had less than 100 drug-related deaths in any given month, but that changed in January 2010, with 169 drug-related murders in the state.
Mexico - a country to be proud of. A government unable to protect its citizens.
Global Warming - The Greatest Hoax of the 20th century
The Hottest Hoax in the World
BY Ninad D. Sheth
30 January 2010
It was presented as fact. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, led by India’s very own RK Pachauri, even announced a consensus on it. The world was heating up and humans were to blame. A pack of lies, it turns out.
The climate change fraud that is now unravelling is unprecedented in its deceit, unmatched in scope—and for the liberal elite, akin to 9 on the Richter scale. Never have so few fooled so many for so long, ever.
The entire world was being asked to change the way it lives on the basis of pure hyperbole. Propriety, probity and transparency were routinely sacrificed.
The truth is: the world is not heating up in any significant way. Neither are the Himalayan glaciers going to melt as claimed by 2035. Nor is there any link at all between natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and global warming. All that was pure nonsense, or if you like, ‘no-science’!
The climate change mafia, led by Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), almost pulled off the heist of the century through fraudulent data and suppression of procedure. All the while, they were cornering millions of dollars in research grants that heaped one convenient untruth upon another. And as if the money wasn’t enough, the Nobel Committee decided they should have the coveted Peace Prize.
But let’s begin at the beginning. Mr Pachauri has no training whatsoever in climate science. This was known all the time, yet he heads the pontification panel which proliferates the new gospel of a hotter world. How come? Why did the United Nations not choose someone who was competent? After all, this man is presumably incapable of differentiating between ocean sediments and coral terrestrial deposits, nor can he go about analysing tree ring records and so on. That’s not jargon; these are essential elements of a syllabus in any basic course on climatology.
You cannot blame him. His degree and training is in railroad engineering. You read it right. This man was educated to make railroads from point A to point B.
THE GATHERING STORM
There are many casualties in this sad story of greed and hubris. The big victim is the scientific method. This was pointed out in great detail by John P Costella of the Virginia-based Science and Public Policy Institute. Science is based on three fundamental pillars. The first is fallibility. The fact that you can be wrong, and if so proven by experimental input, any hypothesis can be—indeed, must be—corrected.
This was systematically stymied as early as 2004 by the scientific in-charge of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Change Unit. This university was at the epicentre of the ‘research’ on global warming. It is here that Professor Phil Jones kept inconvenient details that contradicted climate change claims out of reports.
The second pillar of science is that by its very nature, science is impersonal. There is no ‘us’, there is no ‘them’. There is only the quest. However, in the entire murky non-scientific global warming episode, if anyone was a sceptic he was labelled as one of ‘them’. At the very apex, before his humiliating retraction, Pachauri had dismissed a report by Indian scientists on glaciers as “voodoo science”.
The third pillar of science is peer group assessment. This allows for validation of your thesis by fellow scientists and is usually done in confidence. However, the entire process was set aside by the IPCC while preparing the report. Thus, it has zero scientific value.
The fact that there was dissent within the climate science teams, that some people objected to the very basis of the grand claims of global warming, did not come out through the due process. It came to light when emails at the Climate Research Centre at East Anglia were hacked in November 2009. It is from the hacked conversations that a pattern of conspiracy and deceit emerge. It is a peek into the world of global warming scaremongering—amplify the impact of CO2, stick to dramatic timelines on destruction of forests, and never ask for a referral or raise a contrary point. You were either a believer in a hotter world or not welcome in this ‘scientific fold’.
HOUSE OF CARDS AND COLOUR OF CASH
So we have the fact that a non-expert heads the IPCC. We have the fact that glaciers are not melting by 2035; this major scaremongering is now being defended as a minor error (it was originally meant to be 2350, some have clarified). The date was spouted first by Syed Hasnain, an Indian glacier expert, in an interview to a magazine. It had no scientific validity, and, as Hasnain has himself said, was speculative.
On the basis of that assertion, The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri) that Pachauri heads and where Hasnain works in the glaciology team, got two massive chunks of funding. The first was estimated to be a $300,000 grant from Carnegie Corporation and the second was a part of the $2 million funding from the European Union. So you write a report that is false on glaciers melting and get millions to study the impact of a meltdown which will not be happening in the first place. Now if this is not a neat one, what is?
The same goes for dire predictions on Amazon rain forests. The IPCC maintained that there would be a huge depletion in Amazon rain forests because of lack of precipitation. Needless to add, no Amazon rain forest expert could be trusted to back this claim. They depended on a report by a freelance journalist and activist, instead, and now it has blown up in their faces.
There’s plenty more in this sordid tale. For one thing, there is no scientific consensus at all that man-made CO2 emissions cause global warming, as claimed by the IPCC. In a recent paper, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, who has worked extensively on climate change models, argues: ‘There is no scientific consensus on how much the world has warmed or will warm; how much of the warming is natural; how much impact greenhouse gases have had or will have on temperature; how sea level, storms, droughts, floods, flora, and fauna will respond to warmer temperature; what mitigative steps—if any—we should take; whether (if at all) such steps would have sufficient (or any) climatic effect; or even whether we should take any steps at all.’
An investigation by Dr Benny Peiser, director, Global Warming Policy Foundation, has revealed that only 13 of the 1,117, or a mere 1 per cent of the scientific papers crosschecked by him, explicitly endorse the consensus as defined by the IPCC. Thus the very basis of the claim of consensus on global warming is false. And so deeply entrenched is the global warming lobby, the prestigious journal Science did not publish a letter that Dr Peiser wrote pointing out the lack of consensus.
Speaking to Open, says Dr Peiser, “The IPCC process by which it arrives at its conclusions lacks balance, transparency and due diligence. It is controlled by a tightly knit group of individuals who are completely convinced that they are right. As a result, conflicting data and evidence, even if published in peer-reviewed journals, are regularly ignored, while exaggerated claims, even if contentious or not peer-reviewed, are often highlighted in IPCC reports. Not surprisingly, the IPCC has lost a lot of credibility in recent years. It is also losing the trust of more and more governments who are no longer following its advice. Until it agrees to undergo a root and branch reform, it will continue to haemorrhage credibility and trust. The time has come for a complete overhaul of its structure and workings.”
Another fraud is in the very chart central to Pachauri’s speech at the Copenhagen summit. As Lord Monckton has pointed out, ‘The graph is bogus not only because it relies on made-up data from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, but also because it is overlain by four separate trendlines, each with a start-date carefully selected to give the entirely false impression that the rate of warming over the past 150 years has itself been accelerating, especially between 1975 and 1998. The truth, however—neatly obscured by an ingenious rescaling of the graph and the superimposition of the four bogus trend lines on it—is that from 1860 to 1880 and again from 1910 to 1940 the warming rate was exactly the same as the warming rate from 1975 to 1998.’
Thus the earth has warmed at this rate at least twice in the last 100 years and no major catastrophe has occurred. What is more, the earth has cooled after that warming. Why is the IPCC not willing to explore this startling point?
Another total lie has been that the Sunderbans in Bangladesh are sinking on account of the rise in sea level. The IPCC claimed that one-fifth of Bangladesh will be under water by 2050. Well, it turns out this is an absurd, unscientific and outrageous claim. According to scientists at the Centre for Environmental and Geographical Information Services (Cegis) in Dhaka, its surface area appears to be growing by 20 sq km annually. Cegis has based its results on more than 30 years of satellite imagery. IPCC has not retracted this claim. As far as they are concerned, Bangladesh is a goner by 2050, submerged forever in the Bay of Bengal.
This chart, tracking mean global temperature over the past 150 years, was central to the presentation that IPCC Chairman Rajendra K. Pachauri made at the Copenhagen environment summit. Many scientists believe that the graph is fraudulent. First, there are strong allegations that the data, collected from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, is a tissue of lies. Plus, as British climate change expert Lord Christopher Monckton puts it: “(The main graph, in darker blue) is overlain by four separate lines, each carefully selected to give the entirely false im•pression that the rate of warming over the past 150 years has itself been accelerating, especially between 1975 and 1998. The truth, however... is that from 1860 to 1880 and again from 1910 to 1940, the warming rate was exactly the same as the warming rate from 1975 to 1998.” In other words, the graph has been drawn with a motive to prove one’s point, and not to show the truth.
THE COOKIE CRUMBLES
The fallout of Climategate is slowly but surely unfolding right where it hurts a large number of special interests—in the field of business. Yes, the carbon trading business is now in the line of fire. Under a cap-and-trade system, a government authority first sets a limit on emissions, deciding how much pollution will be allowed in all. Next, companies are issued credits, essentially licences to pollute, based on how large they are, and what industries they work in. If a company comes in below its cap, it has extra credits which it may trade with other companies, globally.
Post Climategate, this worldwide trade, estimated at about $30 billion in 2006, is finding few takers. It is under attack following the renewed uncertainty over the role of human-generated CO2 in global warming. In the US, which never adopted any of this to begin with, there is a serious move now to finish off the cap-and-trade regime globally. It’s a revolt of sorts. Six leading Democrats in the US Congress have joined hands with many Republicans to urge the Obama Administration to back off from the regime.
The collapse of the international market for carbon credits, a direct fallout of Climategate, has already sent shudders down many spines in parts of the world that were looking forward to making gains from it. It was big business, after all, and Indian businesses were eyeing it as well. In fact, Indian firms were expected to trade some $1 billion worth of carbon credits this year, and with the market going poof, they stand to lose quite some money (notional or otherwise).
Besides the commercial aspect, there is also the issue of wider public credibility. There have been signs of scepticism all along. In a 2009 Gallup poll, a record number of people—41 per cent—elected to say that global warming was an exaggerated threat. This slackening of public support is in sync with a coordinated political movement that is seeking to re-examine the entire issue of global warming from scratch. The movement is led by increasingly vocal Republicans in the US Senate and packs considerable political power.
Pachauri’s position is also becoming increasingly untenable with demands for his resignation becoming louder by the day. In an interview to Open, Pat Michaels of the Cato Institute, a noted US think-tank, who has followed the debate for years, says, “Dr Pachauri should resign because he has a consistent record of mixing his political views with climate science, because of his intolerance of legitimate scientific views that he does not agree with, because of his disparagement of India’s glacier scientists as practising ‘voodoo science’, and because of his incomprehension of the serious nature of what was in the East Anglia emails.”
Richard North, the professor who brought to light the financial irregularities in a write-up co-authored with Christopher Booker, has also said in a TV interview that, “If Dr Pachauri does not resign voluntarily, he will be forced to do so.”
GLOBAL STORMING AHEAD
The world awaits answers, based not on writings of sundry freelance journalists and non-experts, but on actual verifiable data on whether the globe is warming at all, and if so by how much. Only then can policy options be calibrated. As things stand, there is little doubt that the IPCC will need to be reconstituted with a limited mandate. This mess needs investigation and questions need to be answered as to why absurd claims were taken as gospel truth. The future of everything we know as ‘normal’ depends on this. The real danger is that the general public is now weary of the whole thing, a little tired of the debate, and may not really care for the truth, convenient or otherwise.
global warming
BY Ninad D. Sheth
30 January 2010
It was presented as fact. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, led by India’s very own RK Pachauri, even announced a consensus on it. The world was heating up and humans were to blame. A pack of lies, it turns out.
The climate change fraud that is now unravelling is unprecedented in its deceit, unmatched in scope—and for the liberal elite, akin to 9 on the Richter scale. Never have so few fooled so many for so long, ever.
The entire world was being asked to change the way it lives on the basis of pure hyperbole. Propriety, probity and transparency were routinely sacrificed.
The truth is: the world is not heating up in any significant way. Neither are the Himalayan glaciers going to melt as claimed by 2035. Nor is there any link at all between natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and global warming. All that was pure nonsense, or if you like, ‘no-science’!
The climate change mafia, led by Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), almost pulled off the heist of the century through fraudulent data and suppression of procedure. All the while, they were cornering millions of dollars in research grants that heaped one convenient untruth upon another. And as if the money wasn’t enough, the Nobel Committee decided they should have the coveted Peace Prize.
But let’s begin at the beginning. Mr Pachauri has no training whatsoever in climate science. This was known all the time, yet he heads the pontification panel which proliferates the new gospel of a hotter world. How come? Why did the United Nations not choose someone who was competent? After all, this man is presumably incapable of differentiating between ocean sediments and coral terrestrial deposits, nor can he go about analysing tree ring records and so on. That’s not jargon; these are essential elements of a syllabus in any basic course on climatology.
You cannot blame him. His degree and training is in railroad engineering. You read it right. This man was educated to make railroads from point A to point B.
THE GATHERING STORM
There are many casualties in this sad story of greed and hubris. The big victim is the scientific method. This was pointed out in great detail by John P Costella of the Virginia-based Science and Public Policy Institute. Science is based on three fundamental pillars. The first is fallibility. The fact that you can be wrong, and if so proven by experimental input, any hypothesis can be—indeed, must be—corrected.
This was systematically stymied as early as 2004 by the scientific in-charge of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Change Unit. This university was at the epicentre of the ‘research’ on global warming. It is here that Professor Phil Jones kept inconvenient details that contradicted climate change claims out of reports.
The second pillar of science is that by its very nature, science is impersonal. There is no ‘us’, there is no ‘them’. There is only the quest. However, in the entire murky non-scientific global warming episode, if anyone was a sceptic he was labelled as one of ‘them’. At the very apex, before his humiliating retraction, Pachauri had dismissed a report by Indian scientists on glaciers as “voodoo science”.
The third pillar of science is peer group assessment. This allows for validation of your thesis by fellow scientists and is usually done in confidence. However, the entire process was set aside by the IPCC while preparing the report. Thus, it has zero scientific value.
The fact that there was dissent within the climate science teams, that some people objected to the very basis of the grand claims of global warming, did not come out through the due process. It came to light when emails at the Climate Research Centre at East Anglia were hacked in November 2009. It is from the hacked conversations that a pattern of conspiracy and deceit emerge. It is a peek into the world of global warming scaremongering—amplify the impact of CO2, stick to dramatic timelines on destruction of forests, and never ask for a referral or raise a contrary point. You were either a believer in a hotter world or not welcome in this ‘scientific fold’.
HOUSE OF CARDS AND COLOUR OF CASH
So we have the fact that a non-expert heads the IPCC. We have the fact that glaciers are not melting by 2035; this major scaremongering is now being defended as a minor error (it was originally meant to be 2350, some have clarified). The date was spouted first by Syed Hasnain, an Indian glacier expert, in an interview to a magazine. It had no scientific validity, and, as Hasnain has himself said, was speculative.
On the basis of that assertion, The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri) that Pachauri heads and where Hasnain works in the glaciology team, got two massive chunks of funding. The first was estimated to be a $300,000 grant from Carnegie Corporation and the second was a part of the $2 million funding from the European Union. So you write a report that is false on glaciers melting and get millions to study the impact of a meltdown which will not be happening in the first place. Now if this is not a neat one, what is?
The same goes for dire predictions on Amazon rain forests. The IPCC maintained that there would be a huge depletion in Amazon rain forests because of lack of precipitation. Needless to add, no Amazon rain forest expert could be trusted to back this claim. They depended on a report by a freelance journalist and activist, instead, and now it has blown up in their faces.
There’s plenty more in this sordid tale. For one thing, there is no scientific consensus at all that man-made CO2 emissions cause global warming, as claimed by the IPCC. In a recent paper, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, who has worked extensively on climate change models, argues: ‘There is no scientific consensus on how much the world has warmed or will warm; how much of the warming is natural; how much impact greenhouse gases have had or will have on temperature; how sea level, storms, droughts, floods, flora, and fauna will respond to warmer temperature; what mitigative steps—if any—we should take; whether (if at all) such steps would have sufficient (or any) climatic effect; or even whether we should take any steps at all.’
An investigation by Dr Benny Peiser, director, Global Warming Policy Foundation, has revealed that only 13 of the 1,117, or a mere 1 per cent of the scientific papers crosschecked by him, explicitly endorse the consensus as defined by the IPCC. Thus the very basis of the claim of consensus on global warming is false. And so deeply entrenched is the global warming lobby, the prestigious journal Science did not publish a letter that Dr Peiser wrote pointing out the lack of consensus.
Speaking to Open, says Dr Peiser, “The IPCC process by which it arrives at its conclusions lacks balance, transparency and due diligence. It is controlled by a tightly knit group of individuals who are completely convinced that they are right. As a result, conflicting data and evidence, even if published in peer-reviewed journals, are regularly ignored, while exaggerated claims, even if contentious or not peer-reviewed, are often highlighted in IPCC reports. Not surprisingly, the IPCC has lost a lot of credibility in recent years. It is also losing the trust of more and more governments who are no longer following its advice. Until it agrees to undergo a root and branch reform, it will continue to haemorrhage credibility and trust. The time has come for a complete overhaul of its structure and workings.”
Another fraud is in the very chart central to Pachauri’s speech at the Copenhagen summit. As Lord Monckton has pointed out, ‘The graph is bogus not only because it relies on made-up data from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, but also because it is overlain by four separate trendlines, each with a start-date carefully selected to give the entirely false impression that the rate of warming over the past 150 years has itself been accelerating, especially between 1975 and 1998. The truth, however—neatly obscured by an ingenious rescaling of the graph and the superimposition of the four bogus trend lines on it—is that from 1860 to 1880 and again from 1910 to 1940 the warming rate was exactly the same as the warming rate from 1975 to 1998.’
Thus the earth has warmed at this rate at least twice in the last 100 years and no major catastrophe has occurred. What is more, the earth has cooled after that warming. Why is the IPCC not willing to explore this startling point?
Another total lie has been that the Sunderbans in Bangladesh are sinking on account of the rise in sea level. The IPCC claimed that one-fifth of Bangladesh will be under water by 2050. Well, it turns out this is an absurd, unscientific and outrageous claim. According to scientists at the Centre for Environmental and Geographical Information Services (Cegis) in Dhaka, its surface area appears to be growing by 20 sq km annually. Cegis has based its results on more than 30 years of satellite imagery. IPCC has not retracted this claim. As far as they are concerned, Bangladesh is a goner by 2050, submerged forever in the Bay of Bengal.
This chart, tracking mean global temperature over the past 150 years, was central to the presentation that IPCC Chairman Rajendra K. Pachauri made at the Copenhagen environment summit. Many scientists believe that the graph is fraudulent. First, there are strong allegations that the data, collected from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, is a tissue of lies. Plus, as British climate change expert Lord Christopher Monckton puts it: “(The main graph, in darker blue) is overlain by four separate lines, each carefully selected to give the entirely false im•pression that the rate of warming over the past 150 years has itself been accelerating, especially between 1975 and 1998. The truth, however... is that from 1860 to 1880 and again from 1910 to 1940, the warming rate was exactly the same as the warming rate from 1975 to 1998.” In other words, the graph has been drawn with a motive to prove one’s point, and not to show the truth.
THE COOKIE CRUMBLES
The fallout of Climategate is slowly but surely unfolding right where it hurts a large number of special interests—in the field of business. Yes, the carbon trading business is now in the line of fire. Under a cap-and-trade system, a government authority first sets a limit on emissions, deciding how much pollution will be allowed in all. Next, companies are issued credits, essentially licences to pollute, based on how large they are, and what industries they work in. If a company comes in below its cap, it has extra credits which it may trade with other companies, globally.
Post Climategate, this worldwide trade, estimated at about $30 billion in 2006, is finding few takers. It is under attack following the renewed uncertainty over the role of human-generated CO2 in global warming. In the US, which never adopted any of this to begin with, there is a serious move now to finish off the cap-and-trade regime globally. It’s a revolt of sorts. Six leading Democrats in the US Congress have joined hands with many Republicans to urge the Obama Administration to back off from the regime.
The collapse of the international market for carbon credits, a direct fallout of Climategate, has already sent shudders down many spines in parts of the world that were looking forward to making gains from it. It was big business, after all, and Indian businesses were eyeing it as well. In fact, Indian firms were expected to trade some $1 billion worth of carbon credits this year, and with the market going poof, they stand to lose quite some money (notional or otherwise).
Besides the commercial aspect, there is also the issue of wider public credibility. There have been signs of scepticism all along. In a 2009 Gallup poll, a record number of people—41 per cent—elected to say that global warming was an exaggerated threat. This slackening of public support is in sync with a coordinated political movement that is seeking to re-examine the entire issue of global warming from scratch. The movement is led by increasingly vocal Republicans in the US Senate and packs considerable political power.
Pachauri’s position is also becoming increasingly untenable with demands for his resignation becoming louder by the day. In an interview to Open, Pat Michaels of the Cato Institute, a noted US think-tank, who has followed the debate for years, says, “Dr Pachauri should resign because he has a consistent record of mixing his political views with climate science, because of his intolerance of legitimate scientific views that he does not agree with, because of his disparagement of India’s glacier scientists as practising ‘voodoo science’, and because of his incomprehension of the serious nature of what was in the East Anglia emails.”
Richard North, the professor who brought to light the financial irregularities in a write-up co-authored with Christopher Booker, has also said in a TV interview that, “If Dr Pachauri does not resign voluntarily, he will be forced to do so.”
GLOBAL STORMING AHEAD
The world awaits answers, based not on writings of sundry freelance journalists and non-experts, but on actual verifiable data on whether the globe is warming at all, and if so by how much. Only then can policy options be calibrated. As things stand, there is little doubt that the IPCC will need to be reconstituted with a limited mandate. This mess needs investigation and questions need to be answered as to why absurd claims were taken as gospel truth. The future of everything we know as ‘normal’ depends on this. The real danger is that the general public is now weary of the whole thing, a little tired of the debate, and may not really care for the truth, convenient or otherwise.
global warming
Friday, January 29, 2010
Skiing
Until Monday.
I have to say - the single best day of skiing I have ever had - Friday, Mammoth.
The best day ever.
Sunday was as good or almost better
I have to say - the single best day of skiing I have ever had - Friday, Mammoth.
The best day ever.
Sunday was as good or almost better
Thursday, January 28, 2010
AP v Obama. Now you are in trouble.
FACT CHECK: Obama and a toothless commission
Jan 28, 3:12 AM (ET)
By CALVIN WOODWARD
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama told Americans the bipartisan deficit commission he will appoint won't just be "one of those Washington gimmicks." Left unspoken in that assurance was the fact that the commission won't have any teeth.
Obama confronted some tough realities in his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, chief among them that Americans are continuing to lose their health insurance as Congress struggles to pass an overhaul.
Yet some of his ideas for moving ahead skirted the complex political circumstances standing in his way.
A look at some of Obama's claims and how they compare with the facts:
---
OBAMA: "Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't."
THE FACTS: The anticipated savings from this proposal would amount to less than 1 percent of the deficit - and that's if the president can persuade Congress to go along.
Obama is a convert to the cause of broad spending freezes. In the presidential campaign, he criticized Republican opponent John McCain for suggesting one. "The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel," he said a month before the election. Now, Obama wants domestic spending held steady in most areas where the government can control year-to-year costs. The proposal is similar to McCain's.
---
OBAMA: "I've called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can't be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans."
THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted - a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.
---
OBAMA: Discussing his health care initiative, he said, "Our approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan."
THE FACTS: The Democratic legislation now hanging in limbo on Capitol Hill aims to keep people with employer-sponsored coverage - the majority of Americans under age 65 - in the plans they already have. But Obama can't guarantee people won't see higher rates or fewer benefits in their existing plans. Because of elements such as new taxes on insurance companies, insurers could change what they offer or how much it costs. Moreover, Democrats have proposed a series of changes to the Medicare program for people 65 and older that would certainly pinch benefits enjoyed by some seniors. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted cuts for those enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans.
---
OBAMA: The president issued a populist broadside against lobbyists, saying they have "outsized influence" over the government. He said his administration has "excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs." He also said it's time to "require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress" and "to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office."
THE FACTS: Obama has limited the hiring of lobbyists for administration jobs, but the ban isn't absolute; seven waivers from the ban have been granted to White House officials alone. Getting lobbyists to report every contact they make with the federal government would be difficult at best; Congress would have to change the law, and that's unlikely to happen. And lobbyists already are subject to strict limits on political giving. Just like every other American, they're limited to giving $2,400 per election to federal candidates, with an overall ceiling of $115,500 every two years.
---
OBAMA: "Because of the steps we took, there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. ... And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year."
THE FACTS: The success of the Obama-pushed economic stimulus that Congress approved early last year has been an ongoing point of contention. In December, the administration reported that recipients of direct assistance from the government created or saved about 650,000 jobs. The number was based on self-reporting by recipients and some of the calculations were shown to be in error.
The Congressional Budget Office has been much more guarded than Obama in characterizing the success of the stimulus plan. In November, it reported that the stimulus increased the number of people employed by between 600,000 and 1.6 million "compared with what those values would have been otherwise." It said the ranges "reflect the uncertainty of such estimates." And it added, "It is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package."
---
OBAMA: He called for action by the White House and Congress "to do our work openly, and to give our people the government they deserve."
THE FACTS: Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign - to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it's acted upon.
---
OBAMA: "The United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades."
THE FACTS: Despite insisting early last year that they would complete the negotiations in time to avoid expiration of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in early December, the U.S. and Russia failed to do so. And while officials say they think a deal on a new treaty is within reach, there has been no breakthrough. A new round of talks is set to start Monday. One important sticking point: disagreement over including missile defense issues in a new accord. If completed, the new deal may arguably be the farthest-reaching arms control treaty since the original 1991 agreement. An interim deal reached in 2002 did not include its own rules on verifying nuclear reductions.
---
OBAMA: Drawing on classified information, he claimed more success than his predecessor at killing terrorists: "And in the last year, hundreds of al-Qaida's fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed - far more than in 2008."
THE FACTS: It is an impossible claim to verify. Neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has published enemy body counts, particularly those targeted by armed drones in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The pace of drone attacks has increased dramatically in the last 18 months, according to congressional officials briefed on the secret program.
Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn, Jim Drinkard, Erica Werner, Robert Burns and Pamela Hess contributed to this report.
obama
Jan 28, 3:12 AM (ET)
By CALVIN WOODWARD
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama told Americans the bipartisan deficit commission he will appoint won't just be "one of those Washington gimmicks." Left unspoken in that assurance was the fact that the commission won't have any teeth.
Obama confronted some tough realities in his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, chief among them that Americans are continuing to lose their health insurance as Congress struggles to pass an overhaul.
Yet some of his ideas for moving ahead skirted the complex political circumstances standing in his way.
A look at some of Obama's claims and how they compare with the facts:
---
OBAMA: "Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't."
THE FACTS: The anticipated savings from this proposal would amount to less than 1 percent of the deficit - and that's if the president can persuade Congress to go along.
Obama is a convert to the cause of broad spending freezes. In the presidential campaign, he criticized Republican opponent John McCain for suggesting one. "The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel," he said a month before the election. Now, Obama wants domestic spending held steady in most areas where the government can control year-to-year costs. The proposal is similar to McCain's.
---
OBAMA: "I've called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can't be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans."
THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted - a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.
---
OBAMA: Discussing his health care initiative, he said, "Our approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan."
THE FACTS: The Democratic legislation now hanging in limbo on Capitol Hill aims to keep people with employer-sponsored coverage - the majority of Americans under age 65 - in the plans they already have. But Obama can't guarantee people won't see higher rates or fewer benefits in their existing plans. Because of elements such as new taxes on insurance companies, insurers could change what they offer or how much it costs. Moreover, Democrats have proposed a series of changes to the Medicare program for people 65 and older that would certainly pinch benefits enjoyed by some seniors. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted cuts for those enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans.
---
OBAMA: The president issued a populist broadside against lobbyists, saying they have "outsized influence" over the government. He said his administration has "excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs." He also said it's time to "require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress" and "to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office."
THE FACTS: Obama has limited the hiring of lobbyists for administration jobs, but the ban isn't absolute; seven waivers from the ban have been granted to White House officials alone. Getting lobbyists to report every contact they make with the federal government would be difficult at best; Congress would have to change the law, and that's unlikely to happen. And lobbyists already are subject to strict limits on political giving. Just like every other American, they're limited to giving $2,400 per election to federal candidates, with an overall ceiling of $115,500 every two years.
---
OBAMA: "Because of the steps we took, there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. ... And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year."
THE FACTS: The success of the Obama-pushed economic stimulus that Congress approved early last year has been an ongoing point of contention. In December, the administration reported that recipients of direct assistance from the government created or saved about 650,000 jobs. The number was based on self-reporting by recipients and some of the calculations were shown to be in error.
The Congressional Budget Office has been much more guarded than Obama in characterizing the success of the stimulus plan. In November, it reported that the stimulus increased the number of people employed by between 600,000 and 1.6 million "compared with what those values would have been otherwise." It said the ranges "reflect the uncertainty of such estimates." And it added, "It is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package."
---
OBAMA: He called for action by the White House and Congress "to do our work openly, and to give our people the government they deserve."
THE FACTS: Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign - to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it's acted upon.
---
OBAMA: "The United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades."
THE FACTS: Despite insisting early last year that they would complete the negotiations in time to avoid expiration of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in early December, the U.S. and Russia failed to do so. And while officials say they think a deal on a new treaty is within reach, there has been no breakthrough. A new round of talks is set to start Monday. One important sticking point: disagreement over including missile defense issues in a new accord. If completed, the new deal may arguably be the farthest-reaching arms control treaty since the original 1991 agreement. An interim deal reached in 2002 did not include its own rules on verifying nuclear reductions.
---
OBAMA: Drawing on classified information, he claimed more success than his predecessor at killing terrorists: "And in the last year, hundreds of al-Qaida's fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed - far more than in 2008."
THE FACTS: It is an impossible claim to verify. Neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has published enemy body counts, particularly those targeted by armed drones in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The pace of drone attacks has increased dramatically in the last 18 months, according to congressional officials briefed on the secret program.
Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn, Jim Drinkard, Erica Werner, Robert Burns and Pamela Hess contributed to this report.
obama
Dumb as Dodos
Will the silly Retardicans never learn. They are not the equal of the Democrats. Rarely will they ever rise to the occasion. They should simply give up and concentrate on small issues, like counting dots on the ceiling.
New 'Watergate'? Republican activist arrested in plot to have fake repairmen tap phones in Democratic senator's office
By David Gardner
28th January 2010
Daily Mail
The FBI has foiled a Watergate-style plot to bug phones in a U.S. Democrat Senator's office.
Four conservative activists, including Republican activist James O'Keefe, face up to ten years in jail after being arrested in connection with a break in at Senator Mary Landrieu's office on Monday.
Two of the suspects posed as repairmen, wearing denim work suits, fluorescent vests, tool belts and hard hats, to tamper with the telephones in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The failed plot was being compared in Washington last night with the infamous Watergate break-in at the Democratic Party's national headquarters that triggered Richard Nixon’s historic ousting from the White House.
The disgraced president was drummed out of office in 1974 after he was exposed for trying to cover up the politically-motivated burglary.
It was unclear whether the New Orleans plan was a prank intended to be captured on camera or a more serious attempt at political espionage.
While O'Keefe filmed, Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel 'manipulated the telephone system' in the reception area of Landrieu's office on Monday, the FBI said.
The men were held by U.S. Marshals after Flanagan and Basel, tried to gain access to telephone equipment in the U.S. General Services Administration office in the same building.
The two later admitted that they were not telephone repairmen, according to the affidavit.
A fourth man, Stan Dai, was arrested for having helped the three men in 'planning, coordination and preparation of the operation,' the FBI said in a statement.
O'Keefe, from New Jersey, said only 'veritas,' Latin for truth, as he left jail today with suspects Dai, from Virginia, and Basel, from Minnesota, both 24.
As he got into a cab outside the prison, O'Keefe said: 'The truth shall set me free.'
The fourth suspect, Flanagan, 24, from Louisiana, was released earlier yesterday.
His father, Bill, the acting U.S. Attorney based in Shreveport, Louisiana, said: 'That would not be something that I can even imagine him doing.
'I think this is going to be blown out of proportion.'
All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a £155,000.
'It was poor judgment,' Flanagan's lawyer, Garrison Jordan, said in a brief interview outside the courtroom.
'I don't think there was any intent or motive to commit a crime.'
Flanagan recently criticised Landrieu for her vote for the Senate health care bill after negotiating an increase estimated in value at up to £226million for her state's funds for Medicaid, the government's health care programme for the poor.
Conservatives accused Landrieu of selling her vote but she insisted no 'special deals' were made.
[Not true - As soon as the vote had occured, she walked out and told the world, publicly, that it was not a $100 million dollar deal, it was $300 million.]
'Do not be fooled into believing Landrieu is helping the state of Louisiana,' Flanagan wrote on November 25 in a post on the website for the Pelican Institute, a Louisiana think tank that promotes the free market and limited government.
O'Keefe's arrest drew the ire of the Democrats, who blasted Republicans for supporting him and for a House of Representatives resolution signed by 31 Republicans honouring the filmmaker for his attempt to root out corruption and the abuse of tax dollars.
Hari Sevugan, Democratic National Committee spokesman, said in a statement: 'The last time Mr O'Keefe was in the news, Republicans broke land speed records to praise him as an American hero and fell all over themselves to outdo one another in expressing disgust, outrage and indignation at what he brought to light.
'The silence by Republicans in the face of these criminal acts by one of their own speaks louder than then their wails of outrage ever did.'
A spokesman for Landrieu declined to comment on the arrests.
Dai, who authorities said was arrested outside the building, is a former assistant director of a programme at Trinity Washington University that taught students about careers in intelligence, university president Patricia McGuire said.
He was also active in the conservative newspaper and other organisations at George Washington University.
O'Keefe, 25, became a darling of America's right-wing during the presidential campaign in 2008 when he exposed a liberal group with ties to Barack Obama.
Using a hidden camera on that occasion, Mr O’Keefe posed as a pimp and brought a young woman posing as a prostitute to the offices of ACORN, a liberal advocacy group that Mr Obama worked with when he was a community organiser in Chicago.
During the secretly taped visit, ACORN staff appeared to offer illegal tax advice and to support the misuse of public funds and child trafficking. [Correction - they did not just APPEAR to offer illegal advice, they did.]
retardicans
New 'Watergate'? Republican activist arrested in plot to have fake repairmen tap phones in Democratic senator's office
By David Gardner
28th January 2010
Daily Mail
The FBI has foiled a Watergate-style plot to bug phones in a U.S. Democrat Senator's office.
Four conservative activists, including Republican activist James O'Keefe, face up to ten years in jail after being arrested in connection with a break in at Senator Mary Landrieu's office on Monday.
Two of the suspects posed as repairmen, wearing denim work suits, fluorescent vests, tool belts and hard hats, to tamper with the telephones in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The failed plot was being compared in Washington last night with the infamous Watergate break-in at the Democratic Party's national headquarters that triggered Richard Nixon’s historic ousting from the White House.
The disgraced president was drummed out of office in 1974 after he was exposed for trying to cover up the politically-motivated burglary.
It was unclear whether the New Orleans plan was a prank intended to be captured on camera or a more serious attempt at political espionage.
While O'Keefe filmed, Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel 'manipulated the telephone system' in the reception area of Landrieu's office on Monday, the FBI said.
The men were held by U.S. Marshals after Flanagan and Basel, tried to gain access to telephone equipment in the U.S. General Services Administration office in the same building.
The two later admitted that they were not telephone repairmen, according to the affidavit.
A fourth man, Stan Dai, was arrested for having helped the three men in 'planning, coordination and preparation of the operation,' the FBI said in a statement.
O'Keefe, from New Jersey, said only 'veritas,' Latin for truth, as he left jail today with suspects Dai, from Virginia, and Basel, from Minnesota, both 24.
As he got into a cab outside the prison, O'Keefe said: 'The truth shall set me free.'
The fourth suspect, Flanagan, 24, from Louisiana, was released earlier yesterday.
His father, Bill, the acting U.S. Attorney based in Shreveport, Louisiana, said: 'That would not be something that I can even imagine him doing.
'I think this is going to be blown out of proportion.'
All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a £155,000.
'It was poor judgment,' Flanagan's lawyer, Garrison Jordan, said in a brief interview outside the courtroom.
'I don't think there was any intent or motive to commit a crime.'
Flanagan recently criticised Landrieu for her vote for the Senate health care bill after negotiating an increase estimated in value at up to £226million for her state's funds for Medicaid, the government's health care programme for the poor.
Conservatives accused Landrieu of selling her vote but she insisted no 'special deals' were made.
[Not true - As soon as the vote had occured, she walked out and told the world, publicly, that it was not a $100 million dollar deal, it was $300 million.]
'Do not be fooled into believing Landrieu is helping the state of Louisiana,' Flanagan wrote on November 25 in a post on the website for the Pelican Institute, a Louisiana think tank that promotes the free market and limited government.
O'Keefe's arrest drew the ire of the Democrats, who blasted Republicans for supporting him and for a House of Representatives resolution signed by 31 Republicans honouring the filmmaker for his attempt to root out corruption and the abuse of tax dollars.
Hari Sevugan, Democratic National Committee spokesman, said in a statement: 'The last time Mr O'Keefe was in the news, Republicans broke land speed records to praise him as an American hero and fell all over themselves to outdo one another in expressing disgust, outrage and indignation at what he brought to light.
'The silence by Republicans in the face of these criminal acts by one of their own speaks louder than then their wails of outrage ever did.'
A spokesman for Landrieu declined to comment on the arrests.
Dai, who authorities said was arrested outside the building, is a former assistant director of a programme at Trinity Washington University that taught students about careers in intelligence, university president Patricia McGuire said.
He was also active in the conservative newspaper and other organisations at George Washington University.
O'Keefe, 25, became a darling of America's right-wing during the presidential campaign in 2008 when he exposed a liberal group with ties to Barack Obama.
Using a hidden camera on that occasion, Mr O’Keefe posed as a pimp and brought a young woman posing as a prostitute to the offices of ACORN, a liberal advocacy group that Mr Obama worked with when he was a community organiser in Chicago.
During the secretly taped visit, ACORN staff appeared to offer illegal tax advice and to support the misuse of public funds and child trafficking. [Correction - they did not just APPEAR to offer illegal advice, they did.]
retardicans
Biden: Amazing he can say this with a straight face
Joe Biden's Filibuster Hypocrisy
January 19, 2010 02:58 PM ET
By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Vice President Joe Biden has a short memory.
While speaking Sunday at a fundraising event in Florida, the vice president denounced the Republicans' use of the filibuster to block key Democratic initiatives in the U.S. Senate. "As long as I have served," Politico quoted Biden as saying, "I've never seen, as my uncle once said, the Constitution stood on its head as they've done. This is the first time every single solitary decision has required 60 senators." Adding, "No democracy has survived needing a supermajority," Biden described the parliamentary tactics of the GOP as putting what the paper said was "a dangerous new roadblock in the way of American government."
What is truly amazing about the vice president's observation, however, is that he apparently made it with a straight face. Biden, who served in the Senate for more than 30 years, was a longtime proponent of the filibuster as a way to block Republican presidential appointments and legislative initiatives. He was also an active opponent, on philosophical grounds, of the so-called nuclear option, a Republican effort to change the rules of the Senate to end the filibuster as a way to block judicial nominations.
Speaking on the Senate floor in May of 2005, Biden said, "At its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee or a bill, it's about compromise and moderation. The nuclear option extinguishes the power of independents and moderates in the Senate. That's it, they're done. Moderates are important if you need to get to 60 votes to satisfy cloture; they are much less so if you only need 50 votes. Let's set the historical record straight. Never has the Senate provided for a certainty that 51 votes could put someone on the bench or pass legislation."
When the Senate was considering President George W. Bush's nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court, Biden held out the prospect of a filibuster to block it. "If he really believes that reapportionment is a questionable decision … then clearly, clearly, you'll find a lot of people, including me, willing to do whatever they can to keep him off the court," Biden said, adding, "That would include a filibuster, if need be."
During his years in the Senate, Biden could be counted on to routinely join Democratic efforts to support filibusters of Republican programs--from the second President Bush's energy bill to the first President Bush's effort to cut the tax on capital gains in order to stimulate the U.S. economy and blunt the impact of the early-'90s recession. Now that he is vice president, and the entire Obama agenda is imperiled, he has changed his mind in an apparent deathbed conversion. It won't last.
hypocrites
January 19, 2010 02:58 PM ET
By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Vice President Joe Biden has a short memory.
While speaking Sunday at a fundraising event in Florida, the vice president denounced the Republicans' use of the filibuster to block key Democratic initiatives in the U.S. Senate. "As long as I have served," Politico quoted Biden as saying, "I've never seen, as my uncle once said, the Constitution stood on its head as they've done. This is the first time every single solitary decision has required 60 senators." Adding, "No democracy has survived needing a supermajority," Biden described the parliamentary tactics of the GOP as putting what the paper said was "a dangerous new roadblock in the way of American government."
What is truly amazing about the vice president's observation, however, is that he apparently made it with a straight face. Biden, who served in the Senate for more than 30 years, was a longtime proponent of the filibuster as a way to block Republican presidential appointments and legislative initiatives. He was also an active opponent, on philosophical grounds, of the so-called nuclear option, a Republican effort to change the rules of the Senate to end the filibuster as a way to block judicial nominations.
Speaking on the Senate floor in May of 2005, Biden said, "At its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee or a bill, it's about compromise and moderation. The nuclear option extinguishes the power of independents and moderates in the Senate. That's it, they're done. Moderates are important if you need to get to 60 votes to satisfy cloture; they are much less so if you only need 50 votes. Let's set the historical record straight. Never has the Senate provided for a certainty that 51 votes could put someone on the bench or pass legislation."
When the Senate was considering President George W. Bush's nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court, Biden held out the prospect of a filibuster to block it. "If he really believes that reapportionment is a questionable decision … then clearly, clearly, you'll find a lot of people, including me, willing to do whatever they can to keep him off the court," Biden said, adding, "That would include a filibuster, if need be."
During his years in the Senate, Biden could be counted on to routinely join Democratic efforts to support filibusters of Republican programs--from the second President Bush's energy bill to the first President Bush's effort to cut the tax on capital gains in order to stimulate the U.S. economy and blunt the impact of the early-'90s recession. Now that he is vice president, and the entire Obama agenda is imperiled, he has changed his mind in an apparent deathbed conversion. It won't last.
hypocrites
Global Warming: The Big Lies, Manipulation and Deception.
And Obama wants to spend billions on this.
From The Times January 28, 2010
The Times Online
Scientists in stolen e-mail scandal hid climate data
Ben Webster, Environment Editor, and Jonathan Leake
The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny.
The University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming.
The Information Commissioner’s Office decided that UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late, The Times has learnt. The ICO is now seeking to change the law to allow prosecutions if a complaint is made more than six months after a breach.
The stolen e-mails , revealed on the eve of the Copenhagen summit, showed how the university’s Climatic Research Unit attempted to thwart requests for scientific data and other information, and suggest that senior figures at the university were involved in decisions to refuse the requests. It is not known who stole the e-mails.
Professor Phil Jones, the unit’s director, stood down while an inquiry took place. The ICO’s decision could make it difficult for him to resume his post.
Details of the breach emerged the day after John Beddington, the Chief Scientific Adviser, warned that there was an urgent need for more honesty about the uncertainty of some predictions. His intervention followed admissions from scientists that the rate of glacial melt in the Himalayas had been grossly exaggerated.
In one e-mail, Professor Jones asked a colleague to delete e-mails relating to the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He also told a colleague that he had persuaded the university authorities to ignore information requests under the act from people linked to a website run by climate sceptics.
A spokesman for the ICO said: “The legislation prevents us from taking any action but from looking at the emails it’s clear to us a breach has occurred.” Breaches of the act are punishable by an unlimited fine.
The complaint to the ICO was made by David Holland, a retired engineer from Northampton. He had been seeking information to support his theory that the unit broke the IPCC’s rules to discredit sceptic scientists.
In a statement, Graham Smith, Deputy Commissioner at the ICO, said: “The e-mails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information.”
He added: “The ICO is gathering evidence from this and other time-barred cases to support the case for a change in the law. We will be advising the university about the importance of effective records management and their legal obligations in respect of future requests for information.”
Mr Holland said: “There is an apparent Catch-22 here. The prosecution has to be initiated within six months but you have to exhaust the university’s complaints procedure before the commission will look at your complaint. That process can take longer than six months.”
The university said: “The way freedom of information requests have been handled is one of the main areas being explored by Sir Muir Russell’s independent review. The findings will be made public and we will act as appropriate on its recommendations.”
global warming
From The Times January 28, 2010
The Times Online
Scientists in stolen e-mail scandal hid climate data
Ben Webster, Environment Editor, and Jonathan Leake
The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny.
The University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming.
The Information Commissioner’s Office decided that UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late, The Times has learnt. The ICO is now seeking to change the law to allow prosecutions if a complaint is made more than six months after a breach.
The stolen e-mails , revealed on the eve of the Copenhagen summit, showed how the university’s Climatic Research Unit attempted to thwart requests for scientific data and other information, and suggest that senior figures at the university were involved in decisions to refuse the requests. It is not known who stole the e-mails.
Professor Phil Jones, the unit’s director, stood down while an inquiry took place. The ICO’s decision could make it difficult for him to resume his post.
Details of the breach emerged the day after John Beddington, the Chief Scientific Adviser, warned that there was an urgent need for more honesty about the uncertainty of some predictions. His intervention followed admissions from scientists that the rate of glacial melt in the Himalayas had been grossly exaggerated.
In one e-mail, Professor Jones asked a colleague to delete e-mails relating to the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He also told a colleague that he had persuaded the university authorities to ignore information requests under the act from people linked to a website run by climate sceptics.
A spokesman for the ICO said: “The legislation prevents us from taking any action but from looking at the emails it’s clear to us a breach has occurred.” Breaches of the act are punishable by an unlimited fine.
The complaint to the ICO was made by David Holland, a retired engineer from Northampton. He had been seeking information to support his theory that the unit broke the IPCC’s rules to discredit sceptic scientists.
In a statement, Graham Smith, Deputy Commissioner at the ICO, said: “The e-mails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information.”
He added: “The ICO is gathering evidence from this and other time-barred cases to support the case for a change in the law. We will be advising the university about the importance of effective records management and their legal obligations in respect of future requests for information.”
Mr Holland said: “There is an apparent Catch-22 here. The prosecution has to be initiated within six months but you have to exhaust the university’s complaints procedure before the commission will look at your complaint. That process can take longer than six months.”
The university said: “The way freedom of information requests have been handled is one of the main areas being explored by Sir Muir Russell’s independent review. The findings will be made public and we will act as appropriate on its recommendations.”
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