“The gravest challenge that we face is climate change . . . Every one of our compatriots must feel concerned”—Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the French Republic;“The climate crisis threatens our very survival”—Herman Van Rompuy, “president” of “Europe”;
“We cannot compromise with the catastrophe of unchecked climate change”—Gordon Brown, prime minister of the United Kingdom;
“Generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children . . . this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”—Barack Obama, president of the United States.
The science is so settled it’s now perfectly routine for leaders of the developed world to go around sounding like apocalyptic madmen of the kind that used to wander the streets wearing sandwich boards and handing out homemade pamphlets. Governments that are incapable of—to pluck at random—enforcing their southern border, reducing waiting times for routine operations to below two years, or doing something about the nightly ritual of car-torching “youths,” are nevertheless taken seriously when they claim to be able to change the very heavens—if only they can tax and regulate us enough. As they will if they reach “consensus” at Copenhagen. And most probably even if they don’t.
How did we reach this point? Ah, well. Like the proverbial sausage factory, you never want to look too closely at how the science gets settled. The other day, a whole bunch of electronic documents most probably leaked by a disaffected insider from the prestigious Climatic Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia were posted online. Given that the CRU has conceded their authenticity, they provide a fascinating glimpse at the science underpinning the calm measured statements of Sarkozy, Brown, Obama, and wossname, the Belgian bloke—as well as of Kyoto, Copenhagen, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the “carbon credits” scam, the U.S. “cap and trade” monstrosity and every other major “climate change” boondoggle this century. They confirm what the soi-disant “skeptics” have long known:
1) The Settled Scientists have wholly corrupted the process of “peer review.”
Phil Jones, director of the CRU, writing to Michael Mann, creator (le mot juste) of the now discredited “hockey stick” graph, about two academics who disagree with him:
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow—even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Professor Mann on an academic journal foolish enough to publish dissenting views:
“Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.”
Professor Jones’s reply:
“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”
And you’ll be glad to hear they did!2) The Settled Scientists have refused to comply with Freedom of Information requests by (illegally) deleting relevant documents.
Phil Jones to Michael Mann on Feb. 3, 2005:
“The two MMs [McKitrick and McIntyre, the latter the dogged retired Ontarian who runs the Climate Audit website] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the U.K., I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.”
And, indeed, the CRU subsequently announced that they had “inadvertently deleted” the requested data.3) The Settled Scientists have attempted to (in the words of one email) “hide the decline”—that’s to say, obscure the awkward fact that “global warming” stopped over a decade ago.
Phil Jones, July 5, 2005:
“The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. Okay it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.”4) The Settled Scientists have tortured the data into compliance with political requirements.
From the computer code for one of the “Mann” models:
“Plots (1 at a time) yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions of growing season temperatures. Uses ‘corrected’ MXD—but shouldn’t usually plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures.”
Yet perhaps the most important revelation is not the collusion, the bullying, the politicization and the evidence-planting, but the fact that, even if you wanted to do honest “climate research” at the Climatic Research Unit, the data and the models are now so diseased by the above that they’re all but useless. Let Ian “Harry” Harris, who works in “climate scenario development and data manipulation” at the CRU, sum it up. Mr. Harris was attempting to duplicate previous results—i.e., to duplicate all that science that’s supposedly settled, and the questioning of which consigns you to the Climate Branch of the Flat Earth Society. How hard should it be to confirm settled science? After much cyber-gnashing of teeth, Harry throws in the towel:
“ARGH. Just went back to check on synthetic production. Apparently—I have no memory of this at all—we’re not doing observed rain days! It’s all synthetic from 1990 onwards. So I’m going to need conditionals in the update program to handle that. And separate gridding before 1989. And what TF happens to station counts?
“OH F–K THIS. It’s Sunday evening, I’ve worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I’m hitting yet another problem that’s based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found.”
Thus spake the Settled Scientist: “OH F–K THIS.” And on the basis of “OH F–K THIS” the world’s enlightened progressives will assemble at Copenhagen for the single greatest advance in punitive liberalism ever perpetrated on the developed world.
Back in the summer, I wrote in a column south of the border:
“If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade. There has been no global warming this century. None. Admittedly the 21st century is only one century out of the many centuries of planetary existence, but it happens to be the one you’re stuck living in.”
In response to that, the shrieking pansies of the eco-left had a fit. The general tenor of my mail was summed up by one correspondent: “How can you live with your lies, dumbf–k?” George Soros’s stenographers at Media Matters confidently pronounced it a “false claim.” Well, take it up with Phil Jones. He agrees with me. The only difference is he won’t say so in public.
Which is a bit odd, don’t you think?
Phil Jones and Michael Mann are two of the most influential figures in the whole “climate change” racket. What these documents reveal is the greatest scientific scandal of our times—and a tragedy. It’s not just their graphs but their battle lines that are drawn all wrong. Science is never “settled,” and certainly not on the basis of predictive models. And any scientist who says it is is no longer a scientist. And the dismissal of “skeptics” throughout the Jones/Mann correspondence is most revealing: a real scientist is always a skeptic.
It may well be that Warmergate has come along too late. I won’t pretend to know the motivations of Jones, Mann and their colleagues, but judging from recent eco-advertising their work appears to have driven worshippers at the First Church of the Settled Scientist literally insane. A new commercial shows polar bears dropping from the skies onto city streets and crushing the cars below. To those of us who still quaintly recall 9/11, it evokes grotesquely those poor souls who chose to jump from the Twin Towers and die in one last gulp of air rather than perish in the fireball within. But who cares? Their plight is as nothing next to that of the polar bear. Why are they plummeting to their deaths from the heavens? As the ad explains, “An average European flight produces over 400 kg of greenhouse gases for every passenger. That’s the weight of an adult polar bear.”
Oooookay. It’s A Warmerful Life: every time they call your flight, a poley bear loses its wings.Some in the political class go along because it’s too much effort to resist. A few are presumably true believers. But what a lot of the rest like about “global warming” is the “global” bit: you can’t do anything about it at town or county or even national level. No, sir, we need a “global” response. Fortunately, as Herman Van Rompuy, “president” of “Europe,” puts it: “2009 is the first year of global governance.”
That’s great news, isn’t it? I would urge the delegates at Copenhagen to listen to the experts and issue a comprehensive statement fully reflecting the rigorous scientific evidence. Here’s my draft:
“OH F–K THIS.”
Friday, December 4, 2009
Settled Science
A 2nd Debt Crisis in Europe?
"We are in a very critical situation," said Chancellor Angela Merkel in her weekly radio address. "We are going to discuss with leaders of the financial institutions what can be done to head off a credit crunch."
The move comes days after the Bundesbank revealed that German banks face a further €90bn (£82bn) of likely write-downs over the next year.
Leaders of the new coalition are to meet industrialists and bankers tomorrow to thrash out an emergency plan. The proposals include a €10bn scheme to purchase toxic securities from banks. The idea is anathema in Germany and faces stiff opposition from Mrs Merkel's Bavarian and liberal partners.
The renewed sense urgency follows a flurry of warnings from economists and business groups over the risks of a credit contraction.
A survey by Munich's IFO institute revealed yesterday that lending conditions in Germany had tightened sharply in November. Some 53pc of large manufacturing companies found credit hard to obtain, suggesting that the problem has spread beyond small firms without access to the bond markets. "The financing situation of firms remains critical and poses a risk to economic recovery," said the group's president, Hans-Werner Sinn.
...The mystery is why the European Central Bank has allowed private lending in the eurozone to shrink by 0.8pc in the 12 months to October. The M3 has been contracting in absolute terms since April money, the first time this has happened in the region for over half a century.
Gabriel Stein from Lombard Street Research said the ECB risks making a grave error. "It is remarkable for a monetarist central bank not to react when the money supply and credit are contracting. This is likely to exacerbate deflation pressures late next year," he said.
Would please me...
The Flying Imam Conspiracy
A group of thirteen men dressed in traditional Muslim attire were among 73 passengers who boarded AirTran Flight 297...As the passengers boarded the aircraft, two of the Muslim men took seats in first class, while the remaining eleven were seated throughout the remaining rows of the aircraft....
As the aircraft began to taxi to the runway, a female flight attendant was beginning to issue the normal passenger advisories over the PA system. Almost on cue at the time passengers were told to turn off all electronic devices, one of the Muslim men seated in the front of the plane began to use his cell phone in a manner that was described by a flight attendant and passenger “as deliberate and obvious.” He was talking loudly in Arabic, nearly at the level of the flight attendant. Some reports suggest that this man actually called another Muslim passenger, although this has not been immediately confirmed. It is possible, however, as another passenger reported that a Muslim man seated toward the rear of the plane answered his cellular phone at the same time the man in the front began using his.
At this point, the flight attendant in the front of the plane approached the Muslim man using his telephone and instructed him to immediately turn it off. A second female flight attendant did the same at the rear of the aircraft. Concurrent with this cellular activity, two other Muslim men seated adjacent near the middle of the aircraft began operating what one passenger described as a palm type camcorder, ostensibly to view previously taken footage. It is possible, according to one flight attendant interviewed by this investigator, however, that the camcorder was being used for recording purposes. Whatever its use, a third flight attendant, aware of the incidents taking place in the front and rear of the aircraft, approached the two men for the purpose of securing the camcorder. At least two passengers reported that the men became abusive to the flight attendant and initially refused to comply with her request.
It was at this time that most of the passengers began to notice the multiple incidents involving over a dozen men dressed in Islamic attire. Next, as if previously rehearsed, at least ten of the 13 Muslim men aboard the aircraft began to leave their seats at the same time. At least one passenger stated she observed one of the Muslim passengers using his cell phone to take photos of other passengers on the aircraft, while one other Muslim passenger sang loudly in Arabic. According to information provided to this investigator from one of the flight crew who was alerted to an onboard emergency, the aircraft was now being taxied back to the terminal. The TSA, FAA and FBI were notified.
And check out this personal account:
The 3rd stewardess informed them that they were not to have electronic devices on at this time. To which one of the men said “shut up infidel dog!” She went to take the camcorder and he began to scream in her face in Arabic. At that exact moment, all 11 of them got up and started to walk the cabin. This is where I had had enough! I got up and started to the back where I heard a voice behind me from another Texan twice my size say “I got your back.” I grabbed the man who had been on the phone by the arm and said “you WILL go sit down or you Will be thrown from this plane!” As I “led” him around me to take his seat, the fellow Texan grabbed him by the back of his neck and his waist and headed out with him. I then grabbed the 2nd man and said, “You WILL do the same!” He protested but adrenaline was flowing now and he was going to go. As I escorted him forward the plane doors open and 3 TSA agents and 4 police officers entered. Me and my new Texan friend were told to cease and desist for they had this under control. I was happy to oblige actually. There was some commotion in the back, but within moments, all 11 were escorted off the plane. They then unloaded their luggage. We talked about the occurrence and were in disbelief that it had happen, when suddenly, the door open again and on walked all 11!! Stone faced, eyes front and robotic (the only way I can describe it). The stewardess from the back had been in tears and when she saw this, she was having NONE of it! Being that I was up front, I heard and saw the whole ordeal. She told the TSA agent there was NO WAY she was staying on the plane with these men.And check out what one security official thought of the incident:
According to one airline security official, “This was a deliberate, well planned attempt to disrupt a domestic flight that was organized in advance of the boarding of these [Muslim] passengers. The purpose of their actions appeared to be multi-faceted, not the least of which was an attempt to change their status from passengers to victims of religious profiling. The situation was handled in a manner that we believe might have avoided an incident like USAir had in 2006, where everyone from the passengers who reported suspicious behavior to the airline was subjected to legal action by the Muslim passengers.”Seems like political correctness is going to get us into a lot more trouble than Fort Hood. It will lead to another 9/11.
Afghanistan as Iraq
Iran Conducts Successful Nuclear Test Simulation
German intelligence reports that Iranian scientists have successfully simulated the detonation of a nuclear warhead in laboratory conditions, in an effort to sidestep an underground nuclear test like the one that brought the world down on North Korea's head earlier this year. DEBKAfile's Iranian and intelligence sources report that this development is alarming because detonation is one of the most difficult technological challenges in the development of a nuclear weapon. Mastering it carries Iran past one of the last major obstacles confronting its program for the manufacture of a nuclear warhead.
After this breakthrough, the German BND intelligence believes it will take Tehran no more than a year to perfect its expertise and stock enough highly-enriched uranium to make the last leap toward building the first Iranian nuclear bomb or warhead. DEBKAfile's military sources confirm that simulated detonation of a warhead takes Iran to the highest level of weapons development.
Using the example of Israel and other nations, Western nuclear arms experts have claimed in recent years that since the emergence of simulated detonation technique, nuclear tests are no longer necessary.
With this hurdle overcome, Tehran has set about restructuring its defense ministry for the coming task of actually making a weapon.
The new Department for Expanded Technology Applications - FEDAT was set up to speed up the military nuclear program. It is divided into sub-departments for uranium mining (to increase the output of the Yazd mines), enrichment (to guarantee the quantity of high-grade uranium needed for weapons), metallurgy, neutrons, highly explosive material and fuel supply.
Wednesday, Dec. 2, Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: "The Iranian nation will by itself make the 20 percent (nuclear) fuel (enriched uranium) and whatever it needs."
President Barack Obama has reminded Tehran that it has until the end of the year for a negotiated accommodation on its nuclear program that will uphold its international obligations. However, tor Iran's leaders, progress toward a nuclear weapon is now unstoppable by any diplomatic means.
Interesting statistics...
Poll: U.S. Isolationist Sentiment Surges to Four-Decade High
The Islamist cancer spreads...
By FARNAZ FASSIHI
NEW YORK -- His first impulse was to dismiss the ominous email as a prank, says a young Iranian-American named Koosha. It warned the 29-year-old engineering student that his relatives in Tehran would be harmed if he didn't stop criticizing Iran on Facebook.
Green in Berlin
Rapper Jay-Z and U2 brightened Berlin's Brandenburg Gate with green lighting during a performance of "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," a U2 song inspired by a 1972 altercation between British troops and protesters in Northern Ireland. During the performance, Jay-Z rapped in support of the Iranian protesters. Watch the video on YouTube.
Two days later, his mom called. Security agents had arrested his father in his home in Tehran and threatened him by saying his son could no longer safely return to Iran.
"When they arrested my father, I realized the email was no joke," said Koosha, who asked that his full name not be used.
Tehran's leadership faces its biggest crisis since it first came to power in 1979, as Iranians at home and abroad attack its legitimacy in the wake of June's allegedly rigged presidential vote. An opposition effort, the "Green Movement," is gaining a global following of regular Iranians who say they never previously considered themselves activists.
The regime has been cracking down hard at home. And now, a Wall Street Journal investigation shows, it is extending that crackdown to Iranians abroad as well.
In recent months, Iran has been conducting a campaign of harassing and intimidating members of its diaspora world-wide -- not just prominent dissidents -- who criticize the regime, according to former Iranian lawmakers and former members of Iran's elite security force, the Revolutionary Guard, with knowledge of the program.
Part of the effort involves tracking the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube activity of Iranians around the world, and identifying them at opposition protests abroad, these people say.
Interviews with roughly 90 ordinary Iranians abroad -- college students, housewives, doctors, lawyers, businesspeople -- in New York, London, Dubai, Sweden, Los Angeles and other places indicate that people who criticize Iran's regime online or in public demonstrations are facing threats intended to silence them.
Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, third from right, leads actors in expressing support for Iran's opposition movement at the Venice film festival in September.
Although it wasn't possible to independently verify their claims, interviewees provided consistently similar descriptions of harassment techniques world-wide. Most asked that their full names not be published.
Today's crisis echoes the events of three decades ago, when Iran's Islamic revolution first bloomed. Back then, Iranians around the world pooled their energy and money to help oust Iran's monarch, the shah. This time, the global community is backing a similar effort, using new tools including Facebook and Twitter. YouTube videos providing step-by-step instructions for staging civil disobedience rack up thousands of views.
But now, unlike 30 years ago, Iran's leadership is striking back across national borders.
Dozens of individuals in the U.S. and Europe who criticized Iran on Facebook or Twitter said their relatives back in Iran were questioned or temporarily detained because of their postings. About three dozen individuals interviewed said that, when traveling this summer back to Iran, they were questioned about whether they hold a foreign passport, whether they possess Facebook accounts and why they were visiting Iran. The questioning, they said, took place at passport control upon their arrival at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport.
Five interviewees who traveled to Iran in recent months said they were forced by police at Tehran's airport to log in to their Facebook accounts. Several reported having their passports confiscated because of harsh criticism they had posted online about the way the Iranian government had handled its controversial elections earlier this year.
Before this past summer, "If anyone asked me, 'Does the government threaten Iranians abroad or their families at home,' I would say, 'Not at all,'" says Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent lawyer inside Iran. "But now the cases are too many to count. Every day I get phone calls and visits from people who are being harassed and threatened" because of relatives' activities abroad.
In November, the deputy commander of Iran's armed forces, Gen. Massoud Jazayeri, wrote an editorial in the conservative newspaper Kayhan that "protesters inside and outside Iran have been identified and will be dealt with at the right time."
In Germany, a national intelligence report indicates that Iranian intelligence operatives are monitoring about 900 critics of the Iranian regime within Germany. One German intelligence official, Manfred Murch, said last month that his staff has identified "Iranian intelligence agents" trying to intimidate protesters in Germany by videotaping them. A German foreign-ministry official said Germany rejected requests from Iran to restrict anti-Iranian protests there.
Mohammad Reza Bak Sahraei, a diplomat at Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York, didn't respond to written questions about Iran's intelligence activities abroad. "The allegation that the Islamic Republic of Iran has created limitations and problems for Iranians who are visiting Iran from abroad is false," Mr. Sahraei said.
In recent months, he said, "Many Iranians have returned to Iran and visited their family members. Until now we have no reports of any limitations being imposed on them. Representatives of Iran abroad are doing their utmost to facilitate traveling for Iranians to Iran."
The crisis in Iran started with June's controversial re-election of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Claims of vote fraud spawned massive street protests, and a bloody crackdown.
The post-election violence has turned Iran's relationship with overseas Iranians on its head. Previously, Iran generally enjoyed good relations with its diaspora. Most opposition movements were on the fringe -- for instance, royalists calling for the shah's return. But the violent suppression of street protests "showed people the true nature of Iran's regime," says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
There are approximately four million Iranians abroad. The U.S. is home to the largest number, totaling at least several hundred thousand. They rank among the nation's best educated and most affluent immigrant groups.
At first, many protesters inside Iran and abroad simply wanted a vote recount. But after the violence, they began calling for a complete overhaul of Iran's Islamic system, up to and including change that would remove Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from power. Around the world, Iranians took to the streets to march in protest against the events in Iran.
An Iranian engineer in his 30s who lives in a German-speaking area of Europe, and who attended protests there this year, described having his passport, cellphone and laptop confiscated when he later traveled to Tehran. He said he was called in for questioning several times, blindfolded, kicked and physically abused, and asked to hand over his email and Facebook passwords.
Interrogators showed him images of himself participating in protests in Europe, he said, and pressed him to identify other people in the images.
"I was very scared. My knees were trembling the whole time and I kept thinking, 'How did this happen to me?'" he said recently. "I only went to a few demonstrations, and I don't even live in Iran."
He said he was told he was guilty of charges including attending antiregime protests abroad, participating in online activities on Facebook and Twitter that harmed Iran's national security and leaving comments on opposition Web sites. He said he was given a choice: Face trial in Iran, or sign a document promising to act as an informant in Europe.
He says he signed the paper, took his passport and left Iran after a month. He says he has received follow-up emails and phone calls but hasn't responded to them.
Other Iranians abroad report receiving email threats tied to their online activities. In Los Angeles in June, an Iranian-American graduate student named Hamid said he received an email that read in part: "Stop spreading lies about Iran on Facebook." He said he received it after he changed his Facebook profile picture to a "V" symbol, for victory, dripping with blood to protest the Iran violence, along with a message about wanting to travel to Iran to support the opposition.
The email, written in Farsi, read in part, "We know your home address in Los Angeles. Watch out, we will come after you," according to Hamid.
There is no way to identify the email's anonymous sender, who signed it "Spider." Other Iranians interviewed in the U.S. and Europe reported receiving similar emails in recent months. Some emails were signed "Spider," they said, while others were signed "Revolutionary Hossein," a possible reference to one of the most revered saints in Shiite Islam.
No matter how widespread, the worries are sowing panic in the overseas community. Concerns about the safety of friends and family are so prevalent among younger Iranians that a number have changed their surnames on Facebook to "Irani" (which means simply "from Iran") to be harder to single out.
Omid Habibinia, a dissident Iranian who left Iran seven years ago for Europe, says he has always been harassed, but the pressure has grown this year. He claims Iranian security services early this year created a fake Facebook account for him and tried to "friend" people on his behalf and ask them questions. Other Iranian dissidents, along with some journalists, described similar experiences.
Officials at Facebook said the company often gets reports of fake profiles and will remove them after a review. A spokeswoman declined to comment on specific profiles that have been removed, including the one Mr. Habibinia described. She said deleted profiles no longer reside on Facebook's servers, making it impossible to trace their origins. She said she wasn't aware of complaints of harassment on Facebook at the hands of Iranian security services.
One 28-year-old physician who lives in Dubai said that in July he was asked to log on to his Facebook account by a security guard upon arrival in Tehran's airport. At first, he says, he lied and said he didn't have one. So the guard took him to a small room with a laptop and did a Google search for his name. His Facebook account turned up, he says, and his passport was confiscated.
After a month and several rounds of interrogations, he says, he was allowed to exit the country.
During Iran's historic 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranians abroad played an instrumental role in transforming the movement from a fringe idea led by a frail cleric, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, into a global force that eventually toppled the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iranians abroad flocked to Mr. Khomeini's side, lending his movement language skills, money and, ultimately, global legitimacy.
In the current crisis, Iran is eager to prevent a similar scenario.
To cut communication between Iranians inside and outside the country, Iran slowed Internet speeds so that accessing an online email account could take close to a half-hour. It blocked access to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. For a while, an automated message warned people making international phone calls not to give information to outsiders.
Tracking Internet crimes -- from political dissent to pornography -- has long been a priority of the regime. Iran's local media openly report on Internet-monitoring centers inside the country's judiciary and armed forces that are staffed with English-speaking, tech-savvy young people.
Late last month, at a military parade in Tehran, intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi announced the training of "senior Internet lieutenants" to confront Iran's "virtual enemies online." This month Iran announced a 12-member unit within the armed forces called the Internet Crime Unit to track individuals "spreading lies and insults" about the regime.
Iran's elite security force, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, along with the intelligence ministry each have their own, separate Internet-monitoring units that track prominent political figures and activists, according to dissidents including Mohsen Sazegara, one of the original founders of the Revolutionary Guard who is now in exile in the U.S. After the June election crisis, these Internet-monitoring units expanded their work to include the online activity of Iranians abroad, these people say.
In the U.S., Koosha, the young engineering student whose father was briefly arrested in Tehran, says he was never politically active before. But this past summer, he said, he watched the turmoil in Iran and "I couldn't just sit and do nothing, I felt too guilty." He watched "people my age getting beaten and killed in the streets for expressing their opinion," he said. "The least I could do was to show my solidarity."
That's when he took steps that attracted the unwelcome attention. He attended a few rallies organized by opposition supporters near where he lives in the U.S. And then, when a prominent human-rights lawyer was jailed in Iran, Koosha created an online petition.
After his father was detained, Koosha took down his petition. "I was terrified and furious," he said. And he doesn't talk politics anymore when he calls his parents in Tehran.
But he's still finding ways to express his views. In September, he biked from Toronto to New York with his brother as part of the group Bicycling for Human Rights in Iran. "They want to control even Iranians who don't live under their rule," he says.—Jeanne Whalen in London,
David Crawford in Berlin and Christopher Rhoads in New York contributed to this article.
Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A14
Like global warming the myth of the university should come under increased scrutiny
Yale buckles to Muslim fanatics Ehrenfeld: Rescue writers from scourge of libel tourism Kirchick: The war against the West Last week's last-minute cancellation at Princeton and Columbia Universities of a lecture by Arab feminist Nonie Darwish - an author who has strongly denounced Islamic intolerance and jihadism - brings to mind American universities' unwillingness to protect campus free speech rights for opponents of Nazism during the 1930s. Shame on these supposed bastions of free speech for rolling over rather than courageously defending academic freedom. Princeton's reason for shutting down the scheduled presentation by Darwish strikingly resembles those given by Queens College's president in April 1938 when he withdrew an invitation to anti-Nazi German Jewish exile Ernst Toller to speak on campus. For its part, Columbia says it cancelled Darwish's talk for a technical reason, because her trip was planned without sponsorship from any recognized Columbia group. I have no doubt, however, that the university could have found a way to accommodate this speaker if it had wanted to. The parallels between Darwish and Toller are powerful. Both were made pariahs in their homelands and came to the United States seeking freedom. Darwish, who grew up in Gaza and in Egypt, became a staunch critic of radical Islam. She wrote a book titled "Now They Call Me Infidel." Toller called his autobiography, published in the United States in 1934, "I Was a German." The Nazis burned his books and confiscated almost all of his property. In both cases, these challenges to authority made the speakers too "controversial" to appear on some campuses here. In Darwish's case, after the Princeton invitation was issued and accepted, a campus Muslim student group protested - and the sponsoring student organizations then withdrew their invitation. This was met with the university administration's approval - or at least its silence. The university apparently would rather not have the headache of having to worry about bad headlines. Toller's case followed a similar pattern. In April 1938, after Germany's Jews had suffered years of savage street beatings, expulsion from the professions and university faculties, Toller was to speak at Queens College. The college's president, Paul Klapper, suddenly cancelled the renowned playwright's lecture, citing opposition from faculty members and students. Klapper claimed that Toller was an "ardent propagandist." Translation: His opposition to Nazism was too pronounced. Later, there was a publicity storm - and Klapper responded. He rescinded the cancellation of Toller's lecture, calling the controversy "an unfortunate misunderstanding." Toller ultimately delivered his talk to a capacity audience of 600. It was a victory for free expression and a defeat, however small, for the forces of totalitarianism. Those who do not understand this history - and the shameful way our institutions of higher learning welcomed Nazis, while turning away many of their strongest opponents - are doomed to repeat it with respect to the radical Islamist threat today. It is chilling that prominent American universities in our day and age provide platforms for virulently anti-Semitic speakers like Iran's leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier who threatens to wipe Israel off the map, while they shut down lectures by opponents of Islamic jihadists. Stephen H. Norwood, professor of history at the University of Oklahoma, is author of "The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses."
Thursday, December 3, 2009
If he cheated for money would why would you think he wouldn't manipulate his science for money?
Former NASA climate scientist pleads guilty to contract fraud
By: Bill MyersExaminer Staff WriterDecember 2, 2009
Former NASA manager Mark Schoeberl, of Silver Spring, pleaded guilty to contract fraud Tuesday.
A former top climate scientist who had become of one the scientific world's most cited authorities on the human effect on Earth's atmosphere was sentenced to probation Tuesday after pleading guilty to steering lucrative no-bid contracts to his wife's company.
In addition to a year's probation, former NASA manager Mark Schoeberl, 60, of Silver Spring, was also fined $10,000 and ordered to put in 50 hours of community service. He admitted in the late summer that he had hid some $50,000 in NASA contracts for a company called Animated Earth, which was run by Schoeberl's wife, Barbara. Prosecutors alleged that Schoeberl tried to help his wife's firm for years. When his colleagues balked at giving no-bid contracts to his wife's firm, Schoeberl pressured them to steer money to his wife through indirect means.
Schoeberl was the chief scientist of the Goddard Space Flight Center's Earth Sciences Division and the head of the Aura Project, a NASA mission to study the Earth's ozone layer, air quality and climate. He has written extensively about the depletion of the ozone level, and the influence of humans on global climate change.
Animated Earth offers plasma-screen kiosks that carry satellite images of the Earth's climate and atmosphere.
"It's an important conviction because it vindicates the principle that federal employees have to act in the public's interest," U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein told The Examiner. "The goal here, really, is ... to promote a fair field for contractors."
As early as 2004, Schoeberl began asking about ways to direct no-bid contracts to Animated Earth, he admitted in his plea agreement.
As the chief scientist at the Earth Sciences Division and leader on the Aura Project, Schoeberl had a lot of clout on the space agency's climate change contracting. He helped his wife draw up invoices for her work and wrote "sole source justification" forms for tens of thousands of dollars in no-bid contracts that went to Animated Earth.
If you can't do for family...
Schoeberl's help to his wife's firm
» Convinced colleagues to approve $20,000 appropriation in 2004
» Wrote no-bid justification after $60,000 contract awarded
» Wife's firm won $190,000 in no-bid contracts between fiscal 2006 and 2008
Efforts to reach Schoeberl's wife were unsuccessful.
Prosecutors confined their efforts to Schoeberl's business practices and not his scientific one, but it's been a rough couple of weeks for global warming. Officials at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England -- whose research has made up the backbone of world climate policy -- are still trying to explain e-mails that show staff suppressing evidence against global warming.
The bond between Communists and Islamists is growing.
'Iran building terror network in South America'
Dec. 3, 2009hilary leila krieger, jpost correspondent in Washington , THE JERUSALEM POST
The Argentinean prosecutor who ferreted out Iranian links to Argentina's largest terror attack warned Wednesday of Teheran's growing terror network in Latin America.
"The Iranians are moving fast," assessed Alberto Nisman, who has secured Interpol backing for the arrest of several Iranians, including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, for ordering the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community offices in Buenos Aires. "We see a much greater penetration than we did in 1994."
He said that Iran, particularly through Lebanese proxy Hizbullah, has a growing presence in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, using techniques it honed in Argentina before the country took measures to counter Teheran following the AMIA bombing.
He described sham operations involving taxi drivers, who conducted surveillance without arousing suspicion; fake medical school students, who could stay in the country for many years without raising eyebrows; and business fronts that helped funnel cash to operatives.
Meanwhile, the Iranians cultivated ties at the local mosques to search for people who could be radicalized.
Now, he said, Argentina is considered a "hostile environment" for Iran, but the Iranian terrorist groups are finding fertile ground in other countries.
"The stronger element that happens today is the complicity of the government," said Nisman, pointing to the networks Iran develops through its embassies. "We know that Chavez allows Hizbullah to come in."
Nisman, who spoke through a Spanish interpreter at a Foundation for Defense of Democracies event Wednesday, said he regularly shared the information he has gathered on Iranian and Hizbullah activities with other countries in an effort to get them to act.
He described responses of "surprise" at how clear the evidence against Iran is in the AMIA case as well as "interest" in the case and the issue of the terror ties.
But, he stressed, "Much more can be done and hopefully will be done before it's too late."
Referring to countries who have not done all they could, particularly in bringing the Iranian perpetrators of the AMIA attack to justice, he continued, "There are too many countries in Europe that continue to turn a blind eye … like [they did] with the Nazis."
Nisman called on these countries to refuse to welcome Iranian leaders to international forums like the United Nations until they adhere to the Interpol-backed warrants and hand over the men wanted by Argentina.
"Iran will not long be able to resist," he contended. "It can't fight against the entire world."
Still, Nisman said he is contemplating additional avenues for bringing the suspects to trial, and the Argentinean courts have already taken some civil actions, with $1.5 million in assets turned over to victims and $633 million attached pending resolution of the case.
He has already succeeded in indicting a former Argentinean president and judge involved in the AMIA case for hindering the investigation and being involved in corruption.
He credited US and Israeli intelligence officers in helping him find the right trails to follow over the course of his three-year investigation, begun a decade after the attack and substantially concluded in 2007.
Both are due to stand trial soon, according to Nisman.
Nisman maintained that he has not given up hope that he will send these top Iranian figures to jail, pointing to the unexpected internal fissures resulting from June's flawed presidential elections as a sign of the potential for change.
"The Iranian revolution has been going for 30 years. It's going to end someday," he said.
This is how it worrks...
Boxer: Hackers should face criminal probe over 'Climategate'
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Great Quote from George
The quickest way to end a war is to lose it - George Orwell
Kind of explains the Dems strategy for the last 40 years doesn't it?
The Death of Science
Science is dead.
Yes, your Curmudgeon is serious. It was an assisted suicide; the attending physicians were the national governments of the world, including the federal government of these United States. The euthanizing drug was money from the public till.
(Yes, this is about Climaquiddick, though not exclusively.)
The funding of "serious" scientific research, regardless of which of the sciences we address, is now dominated by governments. The percentages are difficult to obtain, but it seems certain that the greater number of dollars spent on scientific research in America today come from federally controlled sources such as the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health. In keeping with the old maxim that "he who pays the fiddler calls the tune," Washington has largely taken control of scientific research. Chief investigators spend a huge fraction of their energies on locating topics of interest to grant-making bureaucracies. Washington uses the money lure to channel investigators into its preferred areas...and away from those it would rather not see explored.
The State will always prefer scientific "findings" that provide a justification for increasing its power. Inversely, it will frown on discoveries that undercut its rationales for power. As the bureaucrats who control, de facto, the flow of federal research funds are vividly aware of the relationship between the size of the State and their occupational prospects, it would be unreasonable to expect them to resist this compelling dynamic.
Many good and decent people are unwilling to accept this conclusion. The "man of science," the Man In A Lab Coat, is almost as highly revered in America as the iconic Soldier. He's assumed to be so dedicated to the pursuit of Truth that filthy lucre could never deflect him. This, to be gentle about it, is not the case. Besides, we have recently seen the Obama Administration use the National Endowment for the Arts to marshal propaganda for its purposes. In that light, how could anyone dismiss the use of research grants in the same fashion as unthinkable?
When government began to fund scientific research in nominally private institutions, it changed the dynamic that directs researchers into particular channels. Worse, it changed the dynamic that determines success in the sciences, and what sort of person will pursue a career in them. Today's typical chief investigator is a master of grantsmanship: the fine art of:
- Writing a grant proposal that will catch the eye of a bureaucrat with funds to disburse;
- Maximizing the flow of funds made available through that grant;
- Keeping the grant alive, and the funds flowing, by never, ever conceding that his research has reached a definite conclusion.
Such a chief investigator may be highly intelligent. He may be acutely perceptive of Nature's patterns and unexplored yet fruitful avenues of research. Neither of those qualities will be nearly as important to his ongoing success as his skill at grantsmanship. Maximizing the flow of funds into his laboratory will remain his prime consideration at all times. His ability to do so will enable him to displace less grantsmanly investigators, who will have a much harder time achieving publication, getting tenure, and attracting gifted sub-investigators.
A positive feedback loop connects advanced grantsmanship and frequency of publication. The ability to get funded correlates positively with the ability to get published in prestigious scientific periodicals, which in turn steers the attention and respect of grant-making bureaucracies to the more published investigators, and round and round it goes.
This wheel has been spinning for more than sixty years. It appears unbreakable by any means, short of ending government funding of research. Its principal consequence has been the detachment of nominally scientific institutions and recognized scientists from the pursuit of objectively verifiable knowledge about the natural world --- that is, from authentic science, science as most laymen understand it -- in preference for the favor of governments. The axe of government funding has severed science's heart from its head.
Nevertheless, science of the authentic sort can be revived. Government money and the prestige it can buy have induced a form of zombieism in scientists and their sheltering institutions. A continuing flow of funds is required to keep the victim docile. Therefore, the condition can be reversed...if the scientific community can be induced to endure a period of withdrawal.
Don't ask any current chief investigator to contemplate the notion. They're as firmly hooked on the State's money stream as any crackhead is on his drug of choice. Anyone who thinks it wise to get between an addict and his fix has never done it before, and is in for an unpleasant surprise. Which is more than half the reason your Curmudgeon fled screaming in terror from academia at the instant he'd squeezed all he could from it.
How I Made $100 Million in Just 5 Years - by Al Gore
Denmark rife with CO2 Fraud
Authorities in several countries investigate VAT tax fraud stemming from the Danish CO2 quota registerDenmark is the centre of a comprehensive tax scam involving CO2 quotas, in which the cheats exploit a so-called ‘VAT carrousel’, reports Ekstra Bladet newspaper.
Police and authorities in several European countries are investigating scams worth billions of kroner, which all originate in the Danish quota register. The CO2 quotas are traded in other EU countries.
Denmark’s quota register, which the Energy Agency within the Climate and Energy Ministry administers, is the largest in the world in terms of personal quota registrations. It is much easier to register here than in other countries, where it can take up to three months to be approved.Ekstra Bladet reporters have found examples of people using false addresses and companies that are in liquidation, which haven’t been removed from the register.
One of the cases, which stems from the Danish register, involves fraud of more than 8 billion kroner. This case, in which nine people have been arrested, is being investigated in England.The market for CO2 trade has exploded in recent years and is worth an estimated 675 billion kroner globally.
An interesting book
Review from Amazon:
Starred Review. Philosopher and motorcycle repair-shop owner Crawford extols the value of making and fixing things in this masterful paean to what he calls manual competence, the ability to work with oneÖs hands. According to the author, our alienation from how our possessions are made and how they work takes many forms: the decline of shop class, the design of goods whose workings cannot be accessed by users (such as recent Mercedes models built without oil dipsticks) and the general disdain with which we regard the trades in our emerging information economy. Unlike todayÖs knowledge worker, whose work is often so abstract that standards of excellence cannot exist in many fields (consider corporate executives awarded bonuses as their companies sink into bankruptcy), the person who works with his or her hands submits to standards inherent in the work itself: the lights either turn on or they donÖt, the toilet flushes or it doesnÖt, the motorcycle roars or sputters. With wit and humor, the author deftly mixes the details of his own experience as a tradesman and then proprietor of a motorcycle repair shop with more philosophical considerations. (June)
What kind of message does this send?
By TOM NAMAKO and KIRSTEN FLEMING
A train driver who subdued a crazed man threatening other passengers could bizarrely lose her job for "gross misconduct," The Post has learned.
On Oct. 22, Adeline Bayne-Goody, a 56-year-old subway motorwoman with more than 20 years on the job, held down lunatic Jason Atkinson at the 78th Street station on the No. 1 line until police arrived.
But the next day officials told her she had committed "gross misconduct" and should lose her job for leaving her post, according to MTA documents.
Atkinson, 38, starting berating passengers in the first car of a southbound train at the 86th Street station at 10:40 a.m., documents show.
When the train arrived at 79th Street, Atkinson began pounding on the window of Goody's driver's cab, according to MTA documents.
When she opened the door, Atkinson allegedly unleashed a tirade of racial epithets, spit on her and punched her on the chin, documents state.
When Atkinson tried to flee, the feisty Goody tackled him, sources said.
Goody yesterday said she had no comment on the incident.
She is currently on suspension but her case is still in the disciplinary process.
What Obama Left Out
There's no sign, at least publicly, of a surge in growth of the Afghan army. Obama on Tuesday night steered clear of dealing with McChrystal's August call to hike the combined size of the Afghan army and national police to 400,000. Current plans call for the boosting of the Afghan army to 134,000 troops and the national police force to 82,000 by 2011. McChrystal warned that those totals were insufficient and called for boosting the army to 240,000 ("to increase pressure on the insurgency in all threatened areas in the country") and the police to 160,000.
On Tuesday afternoon, a senior White House official who declined to be quoted by name dismissed McChrystal's call for a bigger Afghan force. "We know that number's out there," the official said, without mentioning that it was put out there by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. James Dubik, a retired Army general who trained the Iraqi military and is now a senior fellow at the independent Institute for the Study of War, argues that the Obama Administration needs to embrace McChrystal's goal. "There's a significant psychological effect on the Taliban if we announce we're going to build an Afghan security force of 400,000," says Dubik. "We're going to miss that opportunity."
Obama's message to West Point cadets was less specific: "We must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan's future."
Scary...
Tells you a lot about the leftist mindset...
reached a new shameful low tonight when Chris Matthews referred to West Point as an "enemy camp." He was trying to convey his surprise that Barack Obama would go to such a place, somewhere, he said, where Paul Wolfowitz would be more comfortable. Chris, he's commander-in-chief. UPDATE: Here is the video:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzdhYTY0MDRiYTBlYjVkOTAwMjE2YWM5OGU5OTg1MDA=
The Coming Obama Massive Tax Increase Even Without Healthcare
The Income Tax: Rates will increase between 3 and 4.5 percentage points in each bracket on January 1, 2011. The 10 Percent Bracket: The bracket will be eliminated on January 1, 2011, raising the income tax burden of many workers by 5 percentage points. The 15 Percent Bracket for Joint Filers: On January 1, 2011, the upper limit of this bracket will shrink from 200 to 167 percent of the upper limit of the 15 percent bracket for single filers, creating a marriage penalty. Standard Deduction for Joint Filers: On January 1, 2011, this will shrink from 200 to 167 percent of the standard deduction for single filers, creating a marriage penalty. The Estate Tax: The top rate for this tax will increase to 60 percent on January 1, 2011, and the value of an estate exempt from taxation will shrink to $1 million, which is less than it is today.
Der Spiegel: Obama Speech Felt False
One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama's speech would be well-received.
Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond "enthusiastically" to the speech. But it didn't help: The soldiers' reception was cool.One didn't have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama's speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.
An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan -- and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war -- and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate.
Just in Time for the Campaign
For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama's re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free.
The speech continued in that vein. It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-President George W. Bush. Extremists kill in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the "world's great religions." He promised that responsibility for the country's security would soon be transferred to the government of President Hamid Karzai -- a government which he said was "corrupt." The Taliban is dangerous and growing stronger. But "America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars," he added.
It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro. The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French revolution: Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire and then they exit to the left. And at the end, the dead are left on stage.
Obama's Magic No Longer Works
But in this case, the public was more disturbed than entertained. Indeed, one could see the phenomenon in a number of places in recent weeks: Obama's magic no longer works. The allure of his words has grown weaker.
It is not he himself who has changed, but rather the benchmark used to evaluate him. For a president, the unit of measurement is real life. A leader is seen by citizens through the prism of their lives -- their job, their household budget, where they live and suffer. And, in the case of the war on terror, where they sometimes die.
Political dreams and yearnings for the future belong elsewhere. That was where the political charmer Obama was able to successfully capture the imaginations of millions of voters. It is a place where campaigners -- particularly those with a talent for oration -- are fond of taking refuge. It is also where Obama set up his campaign headquarters, in an enormous tent called "Hope."
In his speech on America's new Afghanistan strategy, Obama tried to speak to both places. It was two speeches in one. That is why it felt so false. Both dreamers and realists were left feeling distraught.
The American president doesn't need any opponents at the moment. He's already got himself.
Obama Has Set a Trap on Himself
Obama is wrong. You leave when you destroy the Taliban. Not some arbitrary date in time for the next Presidential election. This reminds me of what happened during Vietnam. The NVA and Vietcong would time attacks (physical and diplomatic) to coincide with key points in the American electoral process, figuring they could either get more concessions from the US at the bargaining table at these times or that the American leadership would be too chicken to fight back too hard at those times. So if I were a Taliban, I would essentially put my guns away in a safe place and wait out the Americans, occasionally coordinating a terrorist attack to make sure things don't get TOO normal. When the Americans start pulling out, I would start an offensive. If the Americans continue to pull out then it will look like they are retreating under enemy fire. If they stay, then it would be clear that the President's strategy from 2009/10 was a complete failure. So seems like Obama's strategy is win-win for the Taliban if they play it right.When I asked Obama if the Taliban wouldn't simply wait us out, he was dismissive: "This is an argument that I don't give a lot of credence to, because if you follow the logic of this argument, then you would never leave. Right? Essentially you'd be signing on to have Afghanistan as a protectorate of the United States indefinitely."
Obama thinks that setting deadlines will force the Afghans to get their act together at last. That strikes me as the most dubious premise of his strategy. He is telling his adversary that he will start leaving on a certain date, and telling his ally to be ready to take over then, or else. That's the weak link in an otherwise admirable decision -- the idea that we strengthen our hand by announcing in advance that we plan to fold it.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The Crime of the Century
Few recent events have illustrated the ineptitude, and political agenda, of the mainstream media more dramatically than “Climagate.” The revelation of email correspondence from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, documenting various attempts to suppress data and manipulate scientific “consensus” with thuggish tactics, confirms what critics of the global-warming movement have always maintained: it has a lot more to do with money and politics than science. In fact, the global-warming movement is essentially the opposite of science – the manipulation and destruction of empirical data to support a theory whose accuracy was decided in advance.
Those tempted to compare global warming to a religion should consider that religious faith does not require the willful suppression of knowledge. Calling the belief in global warming a “religion” is an insult to religion. It’s a mistake I have made in the past, and I owe the faithful of all religions an apology for doing so.
Global warming is a scam, pure and simple. By any objective measure, it’s the crime of the century, with a dollar value that dwarfs the sins of Bernie Madoff or Enron. People like Al Gore have become millionaires by selling books and “carbon credits” to their marks… many of whom knew perfectly well they were being taken for a ride, but felt political pressure to play along, or saw opportunities created by the exercise of raw government power. The economic damage from legislation passed in response to this hoax will run into trillions of dollars, if Barack Obama’s disastrous cap-and-trade legislation passes the Senate.
An objective media would respond to this blockbuster news story with front-page headlines and “special report” television treatment. By now, the authors of the incriminating Climate Research Unit emails would be infamous around the world. Top operators of the global warming racket, such as Al Gore, would be hiding in their mansions, afraid to face the mob of angry reporters gathered outside. Liberals love to accuse big corporations of manufacturing crises and taking advantage of consumers with false product information and deceptive advertising. Here is the paramount example of those offenses, on a scale that would widen the eyes of the greatest titans of industry. If a private corporation had conducted a scam as vast, and as destructive to the prosperity of nations – and the aspirations of the working poor…
… but no private corporation could do anything like this, could they? The global warming scam is the kind of crime that only Big Government can mastermind.
Private industry makes plenty of mistakes, but the global warming scam is defined by its utter contempt for costs and benefits - the laws of gravity that hold businesses in orbit around the free market. The global warming cult maintains that no chances can be taken – we must ignore all reservations and contrary evidence, and proceed as if the worst possible outcomes are inevitable, unless we take drastic action. We have to take this action immediately – not even the slightest delay is acceptable. Members of the global warming cult provide constantly shifting dates for environmental doomsday, painting dire pictures of coastal cities becoming aquariums after the polar ice caps melt. With the eager assistance of media allies, the cult produces ridiculous propaganda, like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth or the movie The Day After Tomorrow, embraced warmly for their “good intentions” despite being filled with exaggerations and outright lies.
Business leaders confronted with this kind of hard sell, blown in their faces with frantic enthusiasm, generally respond with suspicion, because they know a con when they see one. When you tell a businessman he is morally obligated to accept a deal that imposes monstrous costs, without visible benefits, and he must agree immediately without asking any further questions, he will get up and leave the table… unless you point a gun at him, and force him to sit back down. That’s where government comes in.
It’s easiest to con someone when they want to be fooled. Global warming is like pornography for Big Government addicts. It provides the rationale for sweeping new powers. It can be used as a moral club to beat class enemies. It creates a climate of perpetual emergency that allows endless taxation and erosion of liberty. There is great power to be gained by those who act as the harbingers of a disaster that is always too far away for hard-nosed analysis, but too close for careful deliberation.
Like most of the biggest government crimes, this one will never be prosecuted. No one will go to jail for the bogus “hockey stick” climate graph, or compensate victims for economic damages. The suckers who bought carbon credits will never be made whole. When corporate miscreants like Enron are brought to justice, there is much talk about setting precedents, and sending warnings to other would-be lawbreakers. Such warnings are never sent to government crooks, and no one talks about the need to set precedents. Indeed, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was still parroting the “science is settled” line today… days after anyone capable of rational thought could possibly agree. No one milking political power from the global warming scam will feel any need to back down or start making sense, until they start paying a significant political price.
If describing the acolytes and hucksters of global warming as “criminals” seems harsh, ask yourself how this situation would be treated if the miscreants had been operating within the private sector. Imagine a group of corporations conspiring to create an imaginary crisis, using junk science and false advertising, with their original raw data safely shredded. Imagine these greedy capitalists selling fantastically expensive “solutions” to the problem they manufactured, and demanding control over scores of other industries in the bargain. Picture an advertising campaign reaching into movies, books, music, and “news” programs. Imagine corporate representatives invading schools to indoctrinate children from an early age, and absolutely saturating children’s literature and television with slogans and carefully constructed horror stories about how the world will suffer, if their parents don’t play ball and start forking over money and liberties to the conglomerate.
Now imagine a hacked server disgorging emails between officers and technicians of these corporations, worded exactly the same as the East Anglia Climate Research Unit messages, and ask yourself how long it would take for the first Senate subcommittees to issue subpoenas, the first crisis news specials to pre-empt prime-time programming, or the first grand juries to convene.
Obama's pro Palestinian terrorist stance is becoming more obvious
30 Nov 2009 01:30 pm
This is what the President had to say after the Israeli announcement that 900 apartment units would be built in the South Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo:
I think that additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel's security. I think it makes it harder for them to make peace with their neighbors. I think it embitters the Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous.Two issues. The first is that this Administration, unlike previous Administrations, doesn't seem to understand that all settlements are not created equal. Palestinian negotiators have fairly consistently recognized that Gilo, a Jerusalem suburb built over the 1967 Green Line, but south, not east, of the city, would remain inside Israel in a final-status peace deal, as part of a dunam-for-dunam land-swap with the Palestinian Authority. So it doesn't matter if Israel adds 900 apartments, or 90 shopping malls, to Gilo. It's staying inside Israel.The second issue is the more consequential one: Having made Gilo an issue when it did not previously exist as an issue (as a matter of fact, Gilo, during the second Uprising, stood for Israeli resilience in the face of Palestinian violence) Obama then warned that Gilo is making Palestinians embittered "in a way that could end up being very dangerous." This is euphemistic, of course, but not too euphemistic, given the history of Palestinian violence. Obama's statement reads almost as a kind of preemptive rationalization for violent Palestinian protest. It's never a good idea, of course, for an American president to forecast Palestinian violence, but it's especially unfortunate now, just when Israel had announced a moratorium on new settlement building. In fact, if the Obama Administration hadn't made such a hash of the peace process, the Palestinians would now be returning to the negotiating table, acknowledging that the Netanyahu settlement moratorium is, as Hillary Clinton said, unprecedented. But since the moratorium didn't meet the maximalist conditions set by the Administration, there's no possible way the Palestinians could have been seen demanding less of the Israelis than Obama did.
How journalists are trained to deny free speech to others...any wonder they're held in low repute
by Jordan Johnson -
An appearance by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication was cut short Monday night when a group of protestors broke into song.
During a public "Meet-the-Press" style interview that began at 7 p.m. in the First Amendment Forum, Arpaio fielded questions from a panel of journalism professors.
The event was preceded by a gathering of more than 100 protestors who chanted and held signs that read "Stop Arpaio" and others that read "We support Sheriff Arpaio."
"I don't agree with a lot of what he is doing and he tries to avoid any questioning," said Christina McDonald, a Cronkite student. "Tonight he was doing the same thing and he wouldn't answer questions directly."
Cronkite Dean Christopher Callahan prefaced the panel interview by pointing out these types of events are to show that the press has a responsibility to "hold people accountable."
The professors asked Arpaio about his relationship with the media and whether he believes his office grants everyone access to information.
"The people have a right to know what I'm doing," Arpaio said. "I'm not afraid to face the media, no matter what the subject is."
The panel questioned Arpaio about free press and First Amendment rights for 45 minutes and began to ask about other issues, including racial profiling, when protestors in the room began to sing.
Without another word, Arpaio took off his microphone and was escorted from the building, and Callahan addressed the protestors and the students.
"I understand your passion about this issue," Callahan said. "It just seems to me, misplaced."
Some students agreed and said the protestors should not have interrupted.
"I felt that the protestors were really out of place by not allowing the journalists to finish questioning him," said Gabrielle Abrams, a Cronkite student. "In protesting Arpaio, they helped him out by letting him leave 20 minutes early."
Tonight's Obama speech at West Point
Iran
The doctor who died at an Iranian detention centre holding opposition supporters was poisoned, the Iranian authorities have said.
But it was still not known if Dr Ramin Pourandarjani committed suicide or was murdered, an Iranian prosecutor said.
The coroner also revealed the person who delivered the food had been interrogated, reports said.
The 26-year-old doctor was found dead on 10 November at the Kahrizak detention centre.
"The coroner said he died after consuming medical pills, the traces of which were found in his salad," Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi said.
Investigation
Two opposition supporters, arrested during the protests that followed disputed elections in June, died in the prison, according to officials.
But the opposition say many more have been killed in Kahrizak detention centre.
In July the prison was closed on the orders of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In October Iranian lawmakers called for an investigation into the deaths in custody.
Following his death Iran's police chief said it was suspected he had committed suicide and that the medic was himself under investigation.
'Suspicious'
Gen Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam said a note which suggested he was feeling depressed had been found next to the body of Dr Pourandarjani.
Opposition groups and some MPs have described his death as "suspicious".
Opposition websites say he had admitted to being forced to say that one detainee had died of meningitis, and to say nothing about what he had seen.
Many of those held at Kahrizak were people who had protested against the re-election in June of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
At least 30 protesters have been killed in clashes since the poll. Thousands were detained and some 200 activists remain behind bars. At least five people have been sentenced to death, prosecutors say.
The UN and the destruction of Israel
WASHINGTON – The UN is currently marking the historic date of November 29 1947, the day in which it approved the partition plan separating Israel into two states – Jewish and Arabic.
But while in Israel the date is celebratory, as it marks the end of the British mandate and the beginning of independent rule, the UN headquarters in New York and Geneva are holding ceremonies of mourning and solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Shalev to slam UN's one-sidedness (Photo: Shahar Azran)
The General Assembly in New York has embarked on a two-day marathon of anti-Israeli debates and votes, during which it plans to focus on the promotion of the Palestinian issue. Hearings will be held on subjects such as sovereignty over Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Israel has traditionally boycotted the debates due to their one-sidedness, but in recent years has changed its tune. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, is scheduled to speak before the assembly Tuesday and condemn the UN tradition of memorializing the date on which Israel was given a state as a day of mourning.
The Palestinian Maan news agency reported that the Palestinian observer at the UN, Riyad Mansour, is expected to announce a "new diplomatic strategy" and ask the Security Council to define the 1967 borders as the new borders of a Palestinian state.
Last year the former president of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto, accused Israel of apartheid during a speech before the UN.
The special debates are scheduled to begin Monday evening, and resolutions will be approved on the following day. Each year six of the 20 annual anti-Israel resolutions are passed by the November 29 assembly.
In addition, the UN will hold ceremonies and exhibitions on the Palestinian people and show a film on the subject.
'Don't call J'lem Palestinian capital'
Dec. 1, 2009Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST
Sweden's attempts to insert language into an EU resolution on the Middle East that would recognize east Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent Palestinian state harms European efforts to play a significant part in mediating between Israel and the Palestinians, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued Tuesday morning.
The statement followed a Haaretz report that the Swedes were pushing a resolution that will be discussed at a monthly meeting of EU ministers next week in Brussels that would officially call for the division of Jerusalem.
According to the Foreign Ministry statement, there is nothing new in the resolution.
However, as one Israeli diplomatic official pointed out, what is maddening from an Israeli view point is that the call for east Jerusalem to be the capital of an independent Palestinian state is not coupled with a call to recognize west Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
"This disrupts the balance," the official said, adding that the resolution is being pushed forward by the Swedes, who hold the rotating presidency of the EU, without any prior coordination with Israel.
The official pointed out that since taking over the presidency in July, Swedish Foreign Minster Carl Blidt has not visited the country once. He was scheduled to come in September, but his visit was cancelled following the angry Israeli reactions to the Aftonbladet newspaper article that accused Israeli soldiers of harvesting Palestinian organs.
The Foreign Ministry statement said that after the significant steps that Israel has taken to enable the renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians, a reference to the recent declaration of a moratorium on new housing starts in the West Bank, "the Europeans should be pressuring the Palestinians to return to the negotiation table. These types of moves being led by Sweden bring about the opposite result."
Change You Can Believe In
The rest here.1. Pay as you go, balanced budget—whatever you wish to call a return to fiscal sanity. Conservatives need to stop talking about tolerable deficits in terms of GDP; and liberals should cease the charade that trillion-plus annual borrowing is great stimulus.
The psychological effect on the American people of paying down the debt through annual surpluses would be incalculable. “Decline” is as much psychological as real, and begins with perceptions of financial insolvency. We have a $11 trillion economy, so balancing the books is not impossible. Note how Obama intends to “address the deficit” only after he has set two budgets that will increase it by nearly four trillion dollars. Note how Bush’s sin of running up large annual deficits is used to excuse Obama’s mortal sin of doubling them. Note how Democrats, after lining up for a trillion-dollar federal take-over of health care, are worried about a multi-billion dollar expense in Afghanistan. Cuts in defense, as the later Romans knew, are always the first reaction to profligate domestic spending and entitlement.
2. Freeze federal spending at the present rate, and let increased revenues balance the budget. The idea that we could ever cut outright the budget seems long ago impossible—given the culture of complaint and the melodramatic rants about starvation and murder if another entitlement is not granted. Still, some sort of leadership is required to remind the American people that much of what their government does is not just unnecessary, but counter-productive and they would be better off without it.
Apparently, Obama simultaneously believes (a) he can create a permanent loyal constituency of millions who either receive or disperse federal “stimulus”, in the fashion of the old Roman turba; (b )he can borrow so much money that higher taxes will be seen as vital and therefore the original intent of income redistribution accomplished; (c) that, having had little experience in the private sector, but much financial success as a community or government employee, he can assume that money comes out of thin air and is to be dispersed non-stop through public benefaction; (d) the upper-middle class, which strives to be as rich as he is, is somehow culpable. A common theme throughout history is a paradoxical hatred of the equestrian, productive class, by both the idle aristocratic and entitlement constituents, who hand in glove need each other.
3. Some sort of fair or flat tax that ends the trillion-dollar industry of tax preparation, avoidance, and fraud. For about a quarter of the population April 15 is a spooky sort of Halloween. Instead, we need a tax system in which one can complete the necessary preparation in about 2 hours. Whose bright idea was it to excuse nearly half the American households from income tax exposure (Clinton and Bush, and now Obama?)—a fact that explains why in Pavlovian fashion recently Senators have been saying that we can add on a new war tax, a health-care surcharge, and a new high rate on “them”? The justification of a 40% income tax, 10% state income tax, 15.3% payroll tax, and new war and health care surcharge taxes can only be that one’s income was undeserved, ill-gotten, and thus better “rectified” by more enlightened federal redistributors.
4. Close the borders to illegal immigration, through completion of the fence, biometric IDs, employer sanctions, beefed up enforcement—coupled with a radical change in legal immigration law that favors education and skill, rather than simply family ties. The present mockery of existing law undermines the sanctity of every law. Those who knowingly break immigration laws, and know that they will not in the future be enforced, naturally assume that other laws likewise will not apply to them, from tax reporting to the vehicle code. We really must ask—why the national outcry over whether illegal aliens will be included in the new health care plan when $50 billion is sent back as remittances to Latin America each year? In rough math, each of the supposedly 11 million illegal aliens sends out on average around $4000-5000 per year southward. Perhaps we could tax remittances to fund their health care? Something is strange about the attitude of “I must send $400-500 a month home to support my family, but now I am broke and need someone to pay for my care at the emergency room, etc.”
Obama is Stealing Christmas
SNL should do a skit where Obama is turned into a claymation character and tries to kill frosty and rudolf for the sake of his own ego.
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