Giovanni's World

Beck And The Battle Flag

giovanniworld — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:13:22 +0000

Like those that carry the standard/battle flag, on the fields of war, Glenn Beck has become the one that Conservatives of all varieties have come to look to for leadership. He has declined the leadership role, but he has accepted the role of the Battle Flag carrier.

If we cannot find a leader to lead us into battle at least we can always trust Glenn to hold that battle flag high for all to see so we can rally our forces and beat back the red tide of Communism.

May God bless and protect Glenn and his family.

Gio-

Glenn Beck, the popular Fox News host, says he wants to go beyond broadcasting his opinions on television and start rallying his political base — formerly known as his audience — to take action. To do so, Beck is styling himself as a political organizer. He says he will promote voter registration drives and sponsor a series of conventions across the country featuring conservative speakers, all leading up to a rally in Washington in August to coincide with the release of his book on conservative proposals for the country.

In an interview, Beck chose his words carefully about his plans and would not say how directly he might support particular candidates. But he made clear that he intends to help elect politicians aligned with his limited-government world view.

On Saturday he was to hold a campaign-style rally in The Villages in Florida, north of Orlando, and announce his plans. “We’ll be looking for ways to get people involved in politics,” he said in the interview. “I hear people saying, ‘OK, now what?’ They’re calling their representative, but it’s time to get more proactive.”

Beck is not the only media firebrand trying to mobilize Americans disaffected by a Democratic-controlled government. The radio host Laura Ingraham is inviting candidates to sign a 10-point pledge on her Web site. Sean Hannity, on his afternoon radio show and primetime Fox News program this month, has promoted “Conservative Victory 2010,” his name for the map on his site that will spell out questions for candidates.

Pundits have used their media outlets to encourage political action before, but people like Beck, Hannity and the former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who also has a show on Fox News, are taking on outsize roles now, political experts and conservative commentators say. One reason, they say, is the weakened state of the Republican Party.

For the diffuse tea party movement that taps into anti-government sentiments, “the media guys are the closest things we even have to a leader,” said Adam Brandon, the vice president for communications at FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group.

Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, said hosts like Beck were articulating populist sentiments, even if they were not directing decision-making. “They are spokesmen for a movement that you can see emerging,” he said.

These efforts seem reminiscent of the Contract With America pledge made by conservatives during the 1994 elections, though some Republicans who are uncomfortable with media personalities taking on new political roles note that such previous efforts originated with lawmakers.

When asked about Beck at a conference last month, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said: “Here’s what I worry about. How many people in my business are going to be controlled by what’s said on the radio or in a TV commercial?”

Beck rejects the labels like “leader” for himself, saying he is “comfortable with the title of ‘citizen fed up.’ ” While he typically attracts 9 million listeners a week for his radio show, it is unclear whether he could mobilize his supporters into action, or whether it will simply burnish his media brand.

His spokesman said the details of the conventions were still being worked out, but Beck likened them to educational seminars. His staff also would not say whether particular candidates for office in the 2010 elections would be invited to speak at the conventions.

It will not be lost on his supporters that the Saturday rally was held in Florida, where the Republican governor, Charlie Crist, has been sharply criticized by conservatives as he runs for an open seat in the U.S. Senate. Crist’s challenger, Marco Rubio, has already signed the pledge on Ingraham’s Web site, as have a smattering of other conservative candidates.

Already, Beck’s page on FoxNews.com features what it calls “In or Out 2010,” a “simple challenge” for lawmakers. It includes a pledge to back a freeze in government spending; oppose all tax increases “until our economy has rebounded”; and support stricter immigration enforcement.

Climate Deception

Eowyn — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:32:28 +0000

Design by bkeyser

CLIMATEGATE: THE FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF “ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING”?

By James Delingpole – Nov 20, 2009 – http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

One of the alleged emails has a gentle gloat over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics, founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting:

“In an odd way this is cheering news.”

But perhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.

Here are a few tasters. (So far, we can only refer to them as alleged emails because – though Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed the break-in to Ian Wishart at the Briefing Room – he has yet to fess up to any specific contents.) But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:

Manipulation of evidence:

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

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

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

Suppression of evidence:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:

Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.

Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.

“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”

“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.”“It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice !”

Hadley CRU has form in this regard. In September – I wrote the story up here as “How the global warming industry is based on a massive lie” – Hadley CRU’s researchers were exposed as having “cherry-picked” data in order to support their untrue claim that global temperatures had risen higher at the end of the 20th century than at any time in the last millenium. Hadley CRU was also the organisation which – in contravention of all acceptable behaviour in the international scientific community – spent years withholding data from researchers it deemed unhelpful to its cause. This matters because Hadley CRU, established in 1990 by the Met Office, is a government-funded body which is supposed to be a model of rectitude. Its HadCrut record is one of the four official sources of global temperature data used by the IPCC.

I asked in my title whether this will be the final nail in the coffin of Anthropenic Global Warming. This was wishful thinking, of course. In the run up to Copenhagen, we will see more and more hysterical (and grotesquely exaggerated) stories such as this in the Mainstream Media. And we will see ever-more-virulent campaigns conducted by eco-fascist activists, such as this risible new advertising campaign by Plane Stupid showing CGI polar bears falling from the sky and exploding because kind of, like, man, that’s sort of what happens whenever you take another trip on an aeroplane.

The world is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called “sceptical” view is now also the majority view.

Unfortunately, we’ve a long, long way to go before the public mood (and scientific truth) is reflected by our policy makers. There are too many vested interests in AGW, with far too much to lose either in terms of reputation or money, for this to end without a bitter fight.

But if the Hadley CRU scandal is true,it’s a blow to the AGW lobby’s credibility which is never likely to recover.

The Second American Revolution

Eowyn — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:19:01 +0000

Today is the first day of the Second American Revolution.

Here’s Glenn Beck’s plan to take America back.

Eowyn

…………

Glenn Beck reveals the Plan

November 21, 2009 – 15:28 ET

Friends,

What an amazing few days on the road this has been. Your spirits have been high, your faith strong and your spine unbendable. I ended my multiday book tour at The Villages with what had been billed as a rally but could be better described as a candid citizen-to-citizen chat.

Today, I have stopped looking for a leader to show us the way out because I have come to realize that the only one who can truly save our country…is us. To change America’s course we need to change ourselves, our expectations and our willingness to accept the unacceptable. When we refuse to allow our children to receive a trophy for participation, we are on the road to restoring the meaning of merit in our Republic. When we insist that no one is too big to fail, we will be able to learn from our mistakes, and when we demand that we are self-reliant, we will ensure that others can rely on us, not the government.

There is much to do, much to learn and time is of the essence. While I will be explaining the entire Plan over the coming weeks and months, I did want to give you a preview of some of the highlights:

- Education is key, and not just for our children. To that end, we will be conducting a series of conventions. These will be full-day experiences where you will be immersed in learning about topics ranging from self-reliance, community organizing, the economy and how to be a political force in your own neighborhood and country. The first one will be in Orlando at UCF Arena on March 27th. You will also be able to vote to have a convention in your region by clicking here.

- I have begun meeting with some of the best minds in the country that believe in limited government, maximum freedom and the values of our Founders. I am developing a 100 year plan. I know that the bipartisan corruption in Washington that has brought us to this brink and it will not be defeated easily. It will require unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting, using only the battlefield of ideas.

- All of the above will culminate in The Plan, a book that will provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps that each of us can take to play a role in this Refounding.

- On August 28, 2010, I ask you, your family and neighbors to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall for the unveiling of The Plan and the birthday of a new national movement to restore our great country.

Impeach Obama

Eowyn — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:12:16 +0000

The Obama Resistance Movement has begun.

Read these “Articles of Impeachment.” If you agree, join the Resistance! Go HERE to add your signature to the Impeachment — while we still have the freedom to do so. I just did.

H/t beloved GiovanniWorld member Bob for the link!

~Eowyn

ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT

Resolved, that Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Article I

In his conduct while President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has:

unlawfully exercised the authority of his office to take private property for public use in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which guarantees to the People that “private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation,” and without “due process of law”;unlawfully interfered with the management of private companies for the purpose of achieving government control of them, in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

unlawfully interfered with the economic rights of the People by imposing unreasonable impairments in the fulfillment of their intended contractual obligations, and their ability to enter into such contracts, and attempting to change our fundamental economic system, where there is no significant or legitimate public purpose to do so.

In doing this, Barack Hussein Obama has undermined the integrity of his office, has brought disrepute on the Presidency, has betrayed his trust as President, and has acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore, Barack Hussein Obama, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.

Article II

unlawfully engaged in a conspiracy to suppress evidence of the true place of his birth. This obstruction of justice has resulted in a violation of the Constitutional provision that a President of the United States must be a natural born citizen.unlawfully refused his assent to the Laws of the United States, and exercised false powers of veto that are contrary to Constitution.

In all of this, Barack Hussein Obama has undermined the integrity of his office, has brought disrepute on the Presidency, has betrayed his trust as President, and has acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Political Whore

Eowyn — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:01:12 +0000

Design by bkeyser

No doubt, you’ve all heard this joke:

Man offers woman $1 million to have sex with him.

Woman says: “Yes!”

Man says: “Now that we’ve established you’re a whore, let’s negotiate.”

That’s Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana).

H/t beloved GiovanniWorld member Steve!

~Eowyn

……………

THE $100 MILLION HEALTH CARE VOTE?

November 19, 2009

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reports:

What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform?

Here’s a case study.

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

Weekend Open Thread

Eowyn — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:36:46 +0000

Got a hot news tip?

How about a joke?

Got good news to share with us? Or can you use some moral support here from your friends of Gio’s World?

Go for it, folks!

~Eowyn

Kill The Bill

giovanniworld — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:14:11 +0000

Below the image is important Obamacare info all Americans need to see. The info was taken directly from Patriotic Resistance, something that I proudly associate with. Please pass along to others.

Gio-

Image created by BKeyser.

A message to all members of Patriotic Resistance

Please take a moment and look over these topics located on the front page:Ten Things You Should Know About This Bill
http://www.resistnet.com/forum/topics/10-things-you-should-know

Top Line Facts and CBO Highlights of the Reid Bill
http://www.resistnet.com/notes/Top-Line_Facts_and_CBO_Highlights_of_Reid_Bill

CBO Score on Senate ObamaCare Bill
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10731/Reid_letter_11_18_09.pdf

A Half Trillion Dollars in Higher Taxes? That’s Not Reform!
http://www.resistnet.com/notes/index/show?noteKey=A_Half_Trillion_Dollars_in_Higher_Taxes%3F_That%27s_Not_Reform!

Please familiarize yourself with this important information right now and then schedule your faxes to your senators and other key members of the Senate
http://www.grassfire.org/1122/offer.asp?Ref_ID=500050

Reid has scheduled the cloture vote to proceed with the debate on the Obamacare bill on the Senate floor for Sat.at 8pm eastern.

Please contact your senators today and ask them to stand with the People and the Constitution. If they have been standing with us then please thank them and ask them to assist us in persuading the others to see the blatant disregard for the People and the Constitution by voting for Obamacare!
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Also, letters that reflect your own personal story and how the bill will affect you and your family will make an impact. You can fill out their online form with your personal note here:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Senators to watch are Ben Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Bayh and Lieberman. Each have their own set of concerns. As always, if you’re contacting Senators, remember that all non-constituent calls are promptly ignored and OFTEN do more harm than good. Schedule your fax today or send your own to Key Targets:
http://www.grassfire.org/1122/offer.asp?Ref_ID=500050

Keep up the pressure so your Senators know we are still serious about Killing the Bill!

Keep up the Great Work!
Darla Dawald, National Director

P.S. Don’t Delay! Schedule your fax today or send your own to Key Targets:
http://www.grassfire.org/1122/offer.asp?Ref_ID=500050

Global Warming Fraud & Conspiracy

Eowyn — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:12:22 +0000

This is HUGE….

H/t beloved GiovanniWorld members bkeyser and LittleMissMuffin!

~Eowyn

……………

DO HACKED E-MAILS SHOW GLOBAL-WARMING FRAUD?

By Ed Morrissey – Nov 20, 2009 – http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/20/do-hacked-e-mails-show-global-warming-fraud/

Controversy has exploded onto the Internet after a major global-warming advocacy center in the UK had its e-mail system hacked and the data published on line. The director of the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit confirmed that the e-mails are genuine — and Australian publication Investigate and the Australian Herald-Sun report that those e-mails expose a conspiracy to hide detrimental information from the public that argues against global warming (via Watt’s Up With That):

The internet is on fire this morning with confirmation computers at one of the world’s leading climate research centres were hacked, and the information released on the internet.

A 62 megabyte zip file, containing around 160 megabytes of emails, pdfs and other documents, has been confirmed as genuine by the head of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, Dr Phil Jones.

In an exclusive interview with Investigate magazine’s TGIF Edition, Jones confirms his organization has been hacked, and the data flying all over the internet appears to have come from his organisation.

“It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.”

One of the most damning e-mails published comes from Dr. Jones himself. In an e-mail from almost exactly ten years ago, Jones appears to discuss a method of overlaying data of temperature declines with repetitive, false data of higher temperatures:

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@[snipped], mhughes@
[snipped]
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@[snipped],t.osborn@[snipped]
Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd [sic] from1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers, Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit

Jones told Investigate that he couldn’t remember the context of “hide the decline,” and that the process was a way to fill data gaps rather than mislead. But when scientists talk about “tricks” in the context of hiding data, it certainly seems suspicious.

Andrew Bolt points to a couple of other suspicious entries in the database as well for the Herald-Sun. For instance, here we have scientists discussing how to delete inconvenient data in order to emphasize other data that supports their conclusions:

From: Tom Wigley [...]
To: Phil Jones [...]
Subject: 1940s
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:25:38 -0600
Cc: Ben Santer [...]
Phil,
Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that theland also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know).
So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean – but we’d still have to explain the land blip. I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips—higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from.
Removing ENSO does not affect this.
It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”.
Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling in the NH—just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols.
The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note – from MAGICC) that the 1910-40 warming cannot be solar. The Sun can get at most 10% of this with Wang et al solar, less with Foukal solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987 (and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s makes the 1910-40 warming larger than the SH (which it currently is not)—but not really enough.
So … why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem? (SH/NH data also attached.)
This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I’d appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have.
Tom.

Hmmm. Sounds like “hid[ing] the data” once again. And here we have them privately admitting that they can’t find the global warming that they’ve been predicting:

From: Kevin Trenberth
To: Michael Mann
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600
Cc: Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , “Philip D. Jones” , Benjamin Santer , Tom Wigley , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer

Hi all

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

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

Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [1][PDF] (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
***

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

Do scientists use data to test theories, or do they use theories to test data? Scientists will claim the former, but here we have scientists who cling to the theory so tightly that they reject the data. That’s not science; it’s religious belief.

Dr. Jones has confirmed that these e-mails are genuine. Whether the work represented by these scientists is as genuine seems to be under serious question. Tim Blair says, “The fun is officially underway.”

Update: These e-mails may explain this:

Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents.

At least the weather in Copenhagen is likely to be cooperating. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that temperatures in December, when the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be one degree above the long-term average.

Otherwise, however, not much is happening with global warming at the moment. The Earth’s average temperatures have stopped climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.

Or maybe it didn’t exist at all, except when scientists at Hadley were “hid[ing] the decline[s].”

Update II: This follows on a more mundane controversy over competence at Hadley that erupted in September:

A scientific scandal is casting a shadow over a number of recent peer-reviewed climate papers.

At least eight papers purporting to reconstruct the historical temperature record times may need to be revisited, with significant implications for contemporary climate studies, the basis of the IPCC’s assessments. A number of these involve senior climatologists at the British climate research centre CRU at the University East Anglia. In every case, peer review failed to pick up the errors.

Soros & Liberal Catholics

Eowyn — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:24:37 +0000

This Sunday, the second collection at Catholic Mass is for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). DO NOT GIVE MONEY TO THE CCHD!!!

I had posted on this 2 days ago, giving the reasons why, and a link to download a “No Thanks” coupon you can put in the collection basket instead of your hard-earned dollars.

Here’s another reason why you should shun CCHD. In fact, CCHD should be defunded and dismantled. The following video by RealCatholicTV is simply EXCELLENT. It traces the intricate web of evil connecting George Soros, an atheist Jew-hating Jew, with the CCHD.

Watch it, even if you’re not Catholic! It’s an eye-opener and most revealing.

~Eowyn

How We Feel

Eowyn — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:17:14 +0000

Design by bkeyser

I was going to post a blog urging everyone to make a last-ditch heroic effort at convincing our respective senators to vote against the Obama(Reid)care bill the Senate will take up tomorrow. That we must concentrate our efforts on FOUR key senators:

Mary Landrieu of Louisiana
202-224-5824
http://landrieu.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
Shreveport zip code: 71101

Ben Nelson of Nebraska
202-224-6551
http://bennelson.senate.gov/contact-me.cfm
Omaha zip code: 68114

Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas
202-224-4843
http://lincoln.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
Little Rock zip code: 72201

Evan Bayh of Indiana
202-224-5623
http://bayh.senate.gov/contact/
Fort Wayne zip code: 46802

Blah, blah, blah….

My senators are Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. I can talk till I’m blue in the face, and I’ll not change their minds.

It’s the same with your senators. If they’re not with us by this time, the probability is zero that a phonecall from us will change their minds.

I decided to post this essay instead — because the author perfectly captures our predicament and our infinite sadness.

~Eowyn

…………….

AMERICANS ARE MESSAGING EACH OTHER ‘S.O.S.’

By Lee Cary – Nov 20, 2009

In many and varied ways, Americans are tapping out the international distress signal to each other, since Washington D.C. isn’t listening.

To all except the most zealous supporters of the Democratic Party, the intentions of the party in power have became clear in less than a year. It’s also clear that there’s not much we citizens can do about it until the 2010 elections. For now, we hunker down and watch the train wreck in slow motion. This is not defeatism. It’s reality, for now.

Meanwhile, the noise surrounding the decline of the U.S. economy has taken on a contradictory surrealism of sorts.

In the Globe And Mail, economist Nouriel Roubini writes,

“The story of the U.S. is, indeed, one of two economies. There is a smaller one that is slowly recovering and a larger one that is still in a deep and persistent downturn…So, while the United States may technically be close to the end of a severe recession, most of America is facing a near-depression. Little wonder, then, that few Americans believe that what walks like a duck and quacks like a duck is actually the phoenix of recovery.”

On the flip side, Law & Order actor Sam Waterston, a certified liberal, narrates a financial firm’s TV ad wherein he suggests that the recession is showing signs of being over. He mentions “green shoots” and hints that now’s the time to jump back into the market. Of course, it’s all qualified with maybe’s and could be’s. Most of us are not seeing short shoots by a long shot.

The President has recently declared himself concerned about the federal deficit. It rings as hollow as if Willie Sutton had said, “I’ve stopped robbing banks, even though I know that’s where the money is and I still like saying ‘stick em’ up’.” The national debt will climb boldly and yearly for the foreseeable future. It’s no longer the elephant in the room. It is the room.

Meanwhile, to divert our attention, NYC will pitch the big tent that’ll host a three-ring international show trial. The media circus will keep people entertained for months, while the dollar shrinks and inflation stirs. It will be a perversion of Bob Hope’s honorable gift to the U.S. military across many holidays and continents: Use a show to take their minds off the war.

Those Americans who align themselves with the G.O.P. have watched their elected officials awaken to the warning signs many of us saw back during the election. Now Senator Lindsey Graham offers sound-bite criticism in his questioning of Attorney General Eric Holder, a man he once voted to confirm. Graham thinks the NYC terrorist trial is a bad idea. Like Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis), who, in the movie Die Hard, finally gets the attention of the police to a hostage situation by throwing a terrorist’s body on top of a patrol car from several floors up, our message to Graham is “Welcome to the party, pal.” His friend, John McCain, who wouldn’t use Candidate Obama’s middle name during the campaign, is now so bold as to say the “s” word…socialism. Welcome to the party, John.

In many and varied voices, Americans tapped out their S.O.S. to Democrat politicians at town hall meetings during the summer recess. Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) is the poster boy for the overall discounting delivered upon the opinions of their constituents. We’ve written letters; waved homemade signs; phoned congressional offices; gathered in large groups. But the train slows not.

Fact is, all that remains for the wreck to begin is for Democrats to make peace with each other, since they’ve had all the votes they needed for a year. It’s just a matter of lining them up with the proper promises, threats, and payoffs. Persuasion Chicago style.

Most of us probably have a friend or two who explained their pending vote for Obama by offering assurances that he would move to the center if elected, and would govern from that position in bipartisan cooperation with a Republican Congress. Their analysis looks silly and naive in retrospect.

So it’s neither to Republican nor Democrat politicians that many Americans are tapping out their S.O.S. We’re messaging each other. Occasionally, even complete strangers. The angst felt by many for the future of the country and, for some, the future that awaits children and grandchildren, grows daily. There are fewer jokes on the street about Obama than there were about Bush. None of this, for many of us, has any humorous edge to it. Satire, occasionally. But humor, so little now as to be none.

Now that Joe Biden’s caravans have gone to running over people and things, already killing one, it’s even hard to find much that’s funny about the guy assigned to ride herd on the impact of the stimulus bill. It’s an impact now being felt in jobs saved and jobs created within imaginary Congressional districts. Forrest Gump would be ashamed of the accounting.

It’s clear that the clowns are in charge and they’re quickly giving away the circus.

So we’re messaging each other, tapping out . . . _ _ _ . . . to the like-minded regardless of any political party proclivity, any status in life or community, any vocation, any color, anything. Their names are Legion, for there are many of them. And their numbers are growing.

This should alarm the career politicians of both parties, for it makes both their futures much less predictable.