BAGHDAD — Iraq announced on Wednesday that it would launch a second round of bids to license international oil companies to develop 11 oil and gas fields or groups of fields.
Iraq’s oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, said at a news conference that he hoped that these fields could be producing 2 to 2.5 million barrels a day in three or four years...
[everyone but u.s.]
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Friday, January 30, 2009
Iraq to Open More Oil Fields to Bids
THE LATEST ENTITLEMENT: FEDERAL HEALTH CARE AT 300 PERCENT OF POVERTY
The Senate made its first down payment on President Obama's health-care plans yesterday, passing a major expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP).
S-CHIP will more than double in size with $73.3 billion in new spending over the next decade -- not counting a budget gimmick that hides the true cost. The program is supposed to help children from working-poor families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but since it was created in 1997 Democrats have used it as a ratchet to grow the federal taxpayer share of health-care coverage.
The political purpose behind S-CHIP has always been to capture the middle class. But every time the program grows, it displaces private insurance, says the Journal:
- Even before Democrats struck down rules limiting crowd out, research indicated that for every 100 children signed up -- now more than 7.1 million -- there is a reduction in private coverage for 25 to 50 kids.
- Exactly the same thing will happen if Obama and Daschle end up introducing a "public option," a government insurance program modeled after Medicare but open to anyone of any income.
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Colleges cut instruction spending
Most of the nation's colleges are gradually paring back their investments in classroom teaching, an analysis of federal data shows. And all colleges have in recent years been spending a greater share of their revenue on expenses other than instruction, including computing centers, student services, administrative salaries and lawn care.
Those are among findings of a report released today that sheds light on where various types of colleges and universities get their money and how they spend it. While instruction remains the largest share of education and general spending at most colleges, much of the revenue raised by increasing tuition is not going to that core function of higher education, it concludes."Students are paying for more and arguably getting less, particularly in the classroom,"
says Jane Wellman, director of the Delta Cost Project, a Washington-based non-profit that released the report. It is based on federally reported data from 2002 to 2006 of nearly 2,000 public and private institutions that enroll about 75% of all college students.
At some point between 2002 and 2004, most private four-colleges began spending a larger share of their budget on administrative and academic support than on instruction.
[if our government was serious about raising general attendance, it would implement an Internet based education system for a basic college education (probably with more varied degrees than bachelors/masters). Transfer of knowledge (if not wisdom - but do you think we're getting that now?) is exactly what the net does best. The problem? It could be done for comparatively FREE - and there's unions galore who think that would be just horrible - and they own a major political party.]
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Harry Reid's dictatorship of bad ideas
Last September, Louisiana's David Vitter strode to the podium of the U.S. Senate to offer an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2009. What's so significant about that?
Amazingly, it marks the last time that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid permitted a Republican amendment to be voted on -- a period of 125 days that can only be described as a diabolical, dictatorial suppression of democracy...
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Experts: ‘Pay to play’ is the SOP on Capitol Hill
The alleged “pay-to-play” scheme coarsely laid out by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) in FBI wiretaps sent the political world on the hunt for those who reportedly offered $1.5 million for a Senate seat. But campaign finance experts and some lawmakers wonder why the person dubbed “Senate Candidate 5” is getting singled out. They do not see much difference between what the candidate’s “emissary” offered and standard operating procedure in Congress.
[our two party system is killing us. We need move to an OPEN (On-line Party-less Electorate Nominating) Process using the Internet to level the playing field and broaden it to anyone with the gumption to run.]
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Democrats in Chicago and Alabama in Trouble, Neither IDed as Democrats
One convicted on bribery, the other attacks cops at crime scene saying she wasn't driving drunk...
... none of the stories (plural) detailing either of these incidents could find room in them to identify these politicians as Democrats.
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NY Pol Indicted... But What's That Party?
Well, it's the Republican Party. And how do we know this? Well, check out the beginning of this AP story: (my bold throughout)
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Joseph Bruno, the former majority leader of the New York Senate and for a time the most powerful Republican in state politics, was indicted Friday on federal corruption charges.Hmmm. He's noted as a Republican in the first sentence.
Then there's the Washington Post that was in such a hurry that it didn't wait for the story to start at all but told us right in the headline that "Former NY GOP Leader Indicted."
Reuters gives us the important news of party affiliation in it's first sentence, too.
And, on top of that, nearly every single local New York paper, TV and radio report filed on the Internet includes Bruno's party right in the first few sentences.
Whereas, and as we've chronicled roughly one bazillion times in the past, when the media finds a criminal Democrat that politician's party is either buried at the end of the story or never mentioned at all.
[nonsense, there's no bias here - move along...]
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Video: 100 Years of Headlines About Catastrophic Climate Change
Readers are encouraged to review a previous NewsBusters report "150 Years of Global Warming and Cooling at the New York Times."
.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
A 40-Year Wish List
You won't believe what's in that stimulus bill
In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make "dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy." Well, you be the judge. [ many examples, snip]
Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren't likely to help the economy immediately. As Peter Orszag, the President's new budget director, told Congress a year ago,"even those [public works] that are 'on the shelf' generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy."
Oh, and don't forget education, which would get $66 billion more. That's more than the entire Education Department spent a mere 10 years ago and is on top of the doubling under President Bush. Some $6 billion of this will subsidize university building projects. If you think the intention here is to help kids learn, the House declares on page 257 that"No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools."
Horrors: Some money might go to nonunion teachers. [snip]
The larger fiscal issue here is whether this spending bonanza will become part of the annual "budget baseline" that Congress uses as the new floor when calculating how much to increase spending the following year, and into the future. Democrats insist that it will not. But it's hard -- no, impossible -- to believe that Congress will cut spending next year on any of these programs from their new, higher levels. The likelihood is that this allegedly emergency spending will become a permanent addition to federal outlays -- increasing pressure for tax increases in the bargain.
This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living -- or dead -- Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it,"We won the election. We wrote the bill."
So they did. Republicans should let them take all of the 'credit'.
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Buying time to build bombs
Obama's plan to negotiate with Iran will give Tehran the time it needs to complete their nuclear weapon program
Barack Obama's arrival in the White House substantially reduces the likelihood of Israel using military force to thwart Iran's nuclear program and accelerates the possibility that within a year the regime of ayatollahs will possess atomic bombs, according to the assessment of experts in Israel and the United States.
Obama may have referred in his inauguration speech to the challenge of "the nuclear threat," but before that he had already made clear his plan of pursuing a sharp turnaround from George Bush's policy on all matters related to Iran.
The policy Obama is formulating is one of engagement and negotiation. He hopes the Iranians will be tempted to respond to the generous proposals he intends to offer them, diplomatic relations, lifting sanctions, improved commercial ties, and in return a halt or at least suspend uranium enrichment.
Iran, the experts believe, will ostensibly respond favorably to the American courtship and will even reciprocate with some gestures of its own, but in practice, Iran will accelerate its nuclear program and there are already signs of this...
[unfortunately, Recommended > ]
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Ahmadinejad Demands Apology for U.S. 'Crimes'
President Obama on Tuesday, in an interview with Arabic television, called for more dialogue with Iran to express difference and see "where there are potential avenues for progress."
Without mentioning President Barack Obama by name, Ahmadinejad Wednesday repeatedly referred to those who want to bring "change," and indicated that Iran would be looking to see if there would be substantive differences in U.S. policy.
Ahmadinejad also demanded the U.S. apologize for 'crimes' committed against Iran...
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Iran's Vice President Sets Two Preconditions for Talks with US
TEHRAN (FNA)- Vice President for Media Affairs Mehdi Kalhor said on Saturday that Iran has set two preconditions for holding talks with the United States of America.
In an exclusive interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency, he said as long as U.S. forces have not left the Middle East region and continues its support for the Zionist regime, talks between Iran and U.S. is off the agenda.
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Obama and "World Opinion"
The big news last week was Barack Obama's executive order declaring that the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay will be closed in one year—maybe. But the interesting thing about this measure is that it is largely symbolic, not substantive.
Obama is unlikely to simply release men like, for example, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the main planner of the September 11 attacks. So instead, as a Wall Street Journal article makes clear, he is going to have to reconstitute some close equivalent of the current military tribunals and the current system of indefinite detention of al-Qaeda combatants.
Thus, this is likely to be a change in symbols rather than substance. But the symbolism is itself ominous. As Jennifer Rubin notes:"So in the end we'd have essentially the same legal system, extremely dangerous prisoners on US soil, and the same complaints from the civil liberties lobby. This is a peculiar type of change indeed, one attuned to the elusive and subjective feelings of "world opinion."
That hits the nail on the head. The real significance of the executive order on Guantanamo is that it is a symbol of Barack Obama's desire to tailor US national security to the demands of "world opinion."
Ask the Israelis how well that policy has been working out for them lately.
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US navy seeks arms bound for Hamas
meanwhile...
Tel Aviv - An American naval taskforce in the Gulf of Aden has been ordered to hunt for suspicious Iranian arms ships heading for the Red Sea as Tehran seeks to re-equip Hamas, its Islamist ally in Gaza.
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NPR Baghdad Chief: Not a Single Iraqi Grateful For Their Alleged 'Freedom'
On Inauguration Day, National Public Radio wanted to know how the Iraqi people would greet the American transition of power. On the afternoon talk show Talk of the Nation, host Neal Conan talked to NPR Baghdad Bureau Chief Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, and her street interviews led her to the idea that Iraq was unanimous:
Not a single Iraqi is grateful for the removal of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship...
[your tax dollars at work]
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Raft of Deals Before Castro's Visit
Russia and Cuba signed a raft of agreements Friday, including some on oil, nickel and car servicing, in preparation for a visit by Cuban President Raul Castro on Jan. 30. Closer ties with Cuba are a springboard for advancing Russian interests in that [that would be 'our'] part of the world, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said after the agreement-signing ceremony. "
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Venezuela opposition attacked after Chavez speech
CARACAS - Assailants attacked Venezuela's opposition with tear gas on Monday after President Hugo Chavez told police to use gas at anti-government public disturbances ahead of a referendum on allowing the leftist re-election. Venezuelans will vote on Feb. 15 on a proposed change to the constitution allowing Chavez and other politicians to stay in office as long as they keep winning elections.
[which is easier to do with tear gas]
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Turner Admits He Ignored Slaughter by Khmer Rouge Communists
MSM
Tuesday’s The O’Reilly Factor on FNC showed a pre-recorded interview with CNN founder Ted Turner, in which O’Reilly got Turner to admit that he and Jane Fonda, who both opposed America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, had ignored the slaughter of millions by the Khmer Rouge communists in Southeast Asia after America’s withdrawal from the region. Turner:"You got me. I didn’t really think about it. You know, it didn’t make the news very much at the time."
[why not?]
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Five Short Economics Lessons
Barack Obama and the Democratic Party seem to have fallen in love with the idea of "make work" jobs. In other words, they're going to take money from taxpayers and then use it to "create green jobs," work projects, and other marginally useful government programs. Then, to add insult to injury, these very same politicians who've taken the money out of working people's pockets will pat themselves on their backs for being compassionate enough to put people to work.
What shouldn't be missed is the other side of the equation: much of the money paid in taxes to the government would otherwise be spent, thereby creating jobs. Furthermore, since the government is less efficient than private industry and because in most cases, people are better able to fill their own needs with their own money than the government can, the "make work" job process is inherently inefficient.
For the United States to remain an economic super power, we need to have competitive businesses that employ productive workers. The American people have proven up to the task for over 200 years and will remain so as long as the government doesn't get in our way. That's why one of the worst things the government can do, particularly in a recession, is to try to create "jobs programs."
[Highly Recommended > ]
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Do Bailouts Prove Reagan's Point Re: Government's Economic View?
Ronald Reagan once said:Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Is there no finer example of this concept than our government's hundred year relationship with the American auto industry?
Before you answer, consider the following Wall Street Journal editorial published Wednesday (h/t Tapscott's Behind the Wheel via Instapundit):
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OUR SPENDTHRIFT STATES DON'T NEED A BAILOUT
Our governors and state legislators need to learn to use fat years to prepare for lean ones.
This time last year, many governors and state legislators were imploring Congress to let them spend more money; now, they are imploring Washington to bail them out. But this is not the first time states have been caught in this trap. Why? Because many fail to address their deep, structural budget problems during the good times, and fail to deal with huge and growing employee pension and benefits liabilities:
- The average public sector worker earns 46 percent more in total compensation than a private sector worker, largely because government employers.
- States have collectively racked up $731 billion in unfunded liabilities for pensions and other retirement benefits but have only put aside $11 billion.
- California state and local governments are paying some $12.8 billion a year to finance public employee pensions, up from $4.8 billion in 1999.
[*as usual, any talk of lower taxes (or, in California, not raising them as much as the Democrats want) results not in consideration of trimming back pension contributions but in threats of cutting essential services. And we keep sending them back...]
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Bush Should Be Ashamed by What He Did to Us
On Sunday's Meet the Press the Washington Post's Michelle Singletary charged Bush “should be ashamed of what he's left us.” The Post-based nationally-syndicated “Color of Money” personal finance columnist contended that as a “regular mom and churchgoer” she's “just so disheartened by what Bush did to us” economically by “fighting a war that we couldn't win.” She got the last word, an overly dramatic one at that, during the panel's assessment of Bush's legacy:His economic legacy is selfishness. You know, you look at what they wanted to do to Social Security. Imagine if our money was in the markets right now, which is one of the things that he wanted to do. I think this, this administration failed on so many levels when it came to the economy, including not regulating the banks and letting things happen that shouldn't have happened with the mortgage industry. And, you know, he should be ashamed of what he, what he's left us.
Singletary, who is also a contributor to NPR, appeared with Todd Purdum of Vanity Fair, Newsweek's Richard Wolffe and Rich Lowry of National Review.
[evidently the change in administration won't end BDS - her 'argument' in nonsensical]
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Obama top star pupil in James Hansen’s School of Climate Change
Obama, knowingly and unknowingly, has raised the bar of expectation very high. In the area of climate change he has done it with almost messianic fervor. How else can you interpret the objective to stop climate change? He is not alone in this arrogant objective, but all it means is he is not alone in the fact that it displays a complete lack of understanding of climate and the natural extent of climate change. In his case, he provided evidence when he announced plans to list CO2 as a toxic substance and a pollutant... [snip]
The answer is James Hansen, the same person who has influenced Gore since 1988 when he appeared before Gore’s Senate Committee. Stephen Schneider introduced him at a Stanford University presentation recently as “an iconic leader”. Schneider made the following statement reported in Discover magazine (October 1989).“Scientists need to get some broader base support, to capture the public’s imagination… that, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of doubts we may have… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
No wonder Schneider defines him as iconic because nobody has practiced what Schneider preached more than Hansen. From the time of his appearance before Gore’s committee to the speech at Stanford, Hansen continued his tactics. Fear, threats of impending doom, running out of time, are all used and backed by misinformation, unjustified speculation, and inaccurate information. [snip]"... a disease called Hansenism which has gripped western media sources and political, business and public opinion in a deadly grasp. Hansenist climate hysteria is driven by relentless, ideological, pseudo-scientific drivel, most of which issues from green political activists and their supporters, and is then promulgated by compliant media commentators who are innocent of knowledge of true scientific method."
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Labour peer set to make a fortune out of eco-bulbs
A former Labour Cabinet Minister is expecting to make a fortune from the Government’s controversial decision to phase out traditional light bulbs and replace them with a low-energy version.
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Light bulbs spark safety fears
–The safety of energy-saving light bulbs is under review over concerns the low-cost green alternative may emit potentially harmful ultraviolet radiation.
Health Canada launched the study in December to test compact fluorescent bulbs to see if they emit ultraviolet radiation.
Two months earlier, British health officials issued a public warning that, in close proximity, the bulbs emit UV rays similar to outdoor exposure levels on a sunny summer day.
Britain's Health Protection Agency now recommends people should not be closer than 30 centimetres [say, a reading lamp] from an energy-saving light bulb for more than one hour per day [say, reading a book], saying it is like exposing bare skin to direct sunlight...
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Huffington: 'I Would Not Have Posted' Article Asking Gore To Apologize
Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine seeing an article at the liberal website the Huffington Post that not only refuted the anthropogenic global warming myth, but also asked Nobel Laureate Al Gore to apologize for the climate hysteria he's caused?
Apparently, neither could the website's founder, as Arianna Huffington has now gone on the record as saying,
"It was an error in judgment" publishing Harold Ambler's "Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted." "I would not have posted it."
So reported the environmental blog Grist Wednesday:
"...Although HuffPost welcomes a vigorous debate on many subjects, I am a firm believer that there are not two sides to every issue, and that on some issues the jury is no longer out. The climate crisis is one of these issues. "
Wow. So there AREN'T two sides to every issue. That sure is a fine concept to be held by a journalist, dontcha think?
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HAWAII'S KEIKO CRASH OFFERS LESSON FOR ALL
Hawaii just had a vivid lesson in health care economics, learning that if you offer people insurance for free -- surprise, surprise -- they'll quickly drop other coverage to enroll. As a result, Hawaii has ended the only state universal children's health care program in the country after just seven months.
The program, called the Keiki (Child) Care Plan, was designed to provide coverage to children whose parents can't afford private insurance but who make too much money to qualify for other public programs, such as Medicaid's State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). However:
- State officials found families were dropping private coverage to enroll their children in the plan [hence the death of the private sector].
- In fact, 85 percent of the children in Keiki Care previously had been covered under a private, nonprofit plan that cost $55 a month.
- When Gov. Linda Lingle (R) saw the data, she pulled the plug on funding; she realized it was unwise to spend public money to replace private coverage that children already had.
- Yet, Lingle is facing a political firestorm from critics who say she's denying children health insurance -- even though children in Hawaiian families earning up to $73,000 a year are eligible for Medicaid.
The Hawaiian debacle should also be a caution to President Obama, who wants to mandate health insurance for all children at the national level.
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Obama 'Shifting Power From Traditional Cabinet Posts'; Will Media Complain About 'Too-Powerful Executive'?
Jonathan Martin at Politico.com reports that the Obama Administration is concentrating lots of power at the top (bolds are mine):
West Wing on steroids in Obama W.H.
President Barack Obama is taking far-reaching steps to centralize decision-making inside the White House, surrounding himself with influential counselors, overseas envoys and policy "czars" that shift power from traditional Cabinet posts.
Not even a week has passed since he was sworn in, but already Obama is moving to create perhaps the most powerful staff in modern history – a sort of West Wing on steroids that places no less than a half-dozen of his top initiatives into the hands of advisers outside the Cabinet.
Pulling power close is something all recent presidents have done – and on the campaign trail, Obama spoke out against George W. Bush’s attempt to expand his executive authority.
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Geithner names ex-lobbyist as Treasury chief of staff
.
This on the same day he announces a rule reducing lobbyists' role in agency decisions.
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Gay Portland Mayor Won't Resign Over Lying About Relationship With Teen
The mayor of Portland, Ore., told city commissioners Sunday he will not resign despite calls for him to do so after he admitted he lied and asked a teenager to lie about their sexual relationship. Mayor Sam Adams publicly apologized this past week for lying early in his campaign.
City Comissioner Randy Leonard told the Associated Press that Adams left him a phone message Sunday morning saying he had decided to remain ...
[why should he - no one else is held responsible for their actions no matter how high/public the office {Geithner, tax czar?}]
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California is almost out of ways to pay bills, fund programs, controller says
California
The controller says California is down to Plan D on its checklist of paying bills. Its cash reserves are piddling; the special funds it borrows from are tapped out, and no one in the private sector is going to lend it any cash at a reasonable interest rate.
That leaves what in state government circles are called "payment deferrals" and what in real life is called "stiffing your creditors."
In this case the creditors include income taxpayers expecting refunds, college students waiting on state aid, counties that operate public assistance programs, and companies that sell goods and services to state agencies.
Chiang has said he won't write $3.7 billion worth of checks for those and other state programs if legislators and the governor haven't reached a deal by next Sunday to close the budget gap.
The controller said he must conserve what little cash the state has to be able to make constitutionally required payments to schools and interest payments to state bondholders.
[anyone recall the many reminders here re: bonds being the worst way to pay for anything as they essentially double a thing's cost? Now add at any cost given their apparent primacy of place re: debtors]
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Sarah Palin forms a PAC
Like others presumed to have their eye on the party nod -- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arkansas ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee -- Palin has set up a PAC -- SarahPAC.
The creation of such a financial entity commits her to nothing. But such a political action committee will allow Palin to position herself to compete by legally collecting donations to travel and speak on her own behalf. (Iowa is a long snow machine ride from Wasilla, Alaska.)
It also will permit her to raise and distribute campaign donations to like-minded GOP supporters seeking office...
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Monday, January 26, 2009
[last chance, they're voting today]
"Character is critical - Do Not Confirm Geithner"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
.
.
A DOZEN FUN FACTS ABOUT THE SPENDING BILL
House Minority Leader John Boehner has compiled a useful list of "fun facts" about the House Democrats' $825 billion "stimulus" bill. For example:
• The House Democrats' bill will cost each and every household $6,700 additional debt, paid for by our children and grandchildren.
• The total cost of this one piece of legislation is almost as much as the annual discretionary budget for the entire federal government.
• President-elect Obama has said that his proposed stimulus legislation will create or save three million jobs; this means that this legislation will spend about $275,000 per job. The average household income in the United States is $50,000 a year.
• The House Democrats' bill provides enough spending -- $825 billion -- to give every man, woman, and child in America $2,700.
• $825 billion is enough to give every person living in 'poverty' [even as the government defines it] in the United States $22,000 - or every person in Ohio $72,000.
Almost one-third of the so called tax relief in the House Democrats' bill is spending in disguise, meaning that true tax relief makes up only 24 percent of the total package -- not the 40 percent that President-elect Obama had requested.And many Capitol Hill Democrats want to spend even more taxpayer dollars...
[* 275K per job created - an example of why government involvement doesn't pay; it costs]
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/01/022586.php
HOW THE GOVERNMENT MEASURES POVERTY
A country's poverty rate should decline as real incomes rise and living standards increase, but the U.S. poverty rate has remained stagnant, says D. Sean Shurtleff, a policy analyst with the National Center for Policy Analysis. For example, Census Bureau household data show:
> In 1968, the official poverty rate was 12.8 percent, meaning 25.4 million people were considered poor.However, household consumption indicates that basic living standards have improved significantly. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the poor actually consume about $2 for every $1 dollar of reported income. How is that possible? The discrepancy is due to unreported or underreported income, savings, credit and welfare benefits.
> In 2007, the poverty rate was 12.5 percent, and 37.3 million people were considered poor.
The current poverty standard only measures families' gross income, which doesn't include capital gains or any 'non-cash' benefits such as food stamps, Medicaid, public housing etc. According to Cato Institute scholar Michael Tanner, the federal government spent an estimated $12,892 per poor person on antipoverty programs in 2005.
The Heritage Foundation estimates that the federal government spent $8.29 trillion on antipoverty programs from 1965 to 2000, mostly in the form of noncash benefits. These benefits raise the living standards of millions of low-income people, but do not count as income; therefore, they do not reduce measured poverty.
This is the main reason the poverty rate has remained stagnant, says Shurtleff.
[I.e., another money & power {indentured votes} scam: the abject poverty of starvation and nakedness has been all but eradicated in this country. Today, 'poor' means your refrigerator (who hasn't got one?) has a little less food, or your car (65%!) isn't as nice as a rich person's. According to an NPR report, 70% of those the Census Bureau deems poor have a higher standard of living based on living space and amenities than do the average citizens of either Paris or Bonn. (Example: 40% of 'poor' owned their own home - in 1999 - .]
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REDEFINING 'POOR' IN AMERICA
A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, founds that luxury goods that few could afford in 1968 are now standard in most households, including 'poor' ones:
- In 2005, a full 85 percent of households that were classified as poor by the Census Bureau had air conditioning (compared to only 36 percent in 1971).
- Some 97 percent had a color television (compared to 40 percent in 1971) and 40 percent had an automatic dishwasher (as opposed to 20 percent in 1971).
- Almost 100 percent owned a refrigerator (compared to 25 percent in 1971).
[I.e., we've made 'helping the poor' and industry in this country - not surprisingly, the definition of 'poor' keeps ratcheting upward to assure they can continually report more and more people 'falling into it'.]
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The Mild-Mannered British Desire For The Annihilation Of Israel
I am standing in a queue waiting to buy a train ticket from London to Canterbury. A well-dressed lady standing behind me informs her friend that she ‘can’t wait till Israel disappears off the face of the earth.’ What struck me was not her intense hostility to Israel but the mild-mannered, matter-of-fact tone with which she announced her wish for the annihilation of a nation. It seems that it is okay to condemn and demonize Israel.
One of my young colleagues who teaches media studies in a London-based university was taken aback during a seminar discussion when some of her students insisted that since all the banks are owned by Jews, Israel was responsible for the current global financial crisis.
This shocking anti-Jewish bigotry and violence – according to the Community Security Trust, Anglo-Jewry is in the middle of the worst outbreak of Jew-hatred since records began a quarter of a century ago, with more than 150 incidents across the country recorded since the beginning of the Gaza war -- has erupted in Britain as a direct result of the British media and political class giving the impression that the Israelis are deliberate child-killers...
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UK National Health Service:No Alcohol at Meetings
It seems that all of the UK's catering in the past to Islam is not enough, as the National Health Service has thought of a couple more ways to appease the Islamic community.
The NHS has put out a 66 page document called Religion or Belief: a Practical Guide for the NHS. One of the changes that will be made is that there will be no more alcohol served at staff meetings because it might offend Muslims.
I am still waiting for just one Muslim to come out and say what other people do around me is not my business.
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Local Sikh sues IRS after losing job over religious knife
A local Sikh woman sued the Internal Revenue Service this week, alleging that the IRS violated her religious freedom by prohibiting her from wearing a small ceremonial knife to her job as a revenue agent. The lawsuit, filed in Houston federal district court on Tuesday, states that the IRS fired Kawaljeet Kaur Tagore in July 2006 because she refused to take off her kirpan, a knife.
[a little tricky; normally when you're on the company's time your actions aren't yours and you do as they say or walk ('at will employment') - but when it's a government agency all things become political...]
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Reuters Calls Name Calling a 'Violent Hate Crime' Against Arab-Americans?
Apparently, if one calls an Arab-American an A** H*le, Reuters and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee want all Americans to know that this is to be considered a "violent hate crime." At least that is what it seems when looking over the very lose and sloppy definition of "violent hate crimes" in a recent story on the falling numbers of such crimes against Arab-Americans in the U.S.
While ostensibly a good story -- discrimination against Arab-Americans has decreased -- it is still odd that Reuters allows this Muslim advocacy group to define even name calling as a "hate crime" and "violent" at that. So many levels of behavior are categorized under the rubric "hate crime" here that it really makes a mockery of the term, if one is even disposed to accept such a term in the first place.
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Nato has 'no will' to admit Georgia or Ukraine
Nato is suffering from 'enlargement fatigue' and has no will to admit Georgia or Ukraine, according to Poland's foreign minister Radek Sikorski. Mr Sikorski, who is a leading contender to become Nato's secretary-general when the Alliance selects a new chief in April, told The Daily Telegraph that membership for both countries was a "fairly distant prospect".
['enlargement fatigue' my ***. It's cow-towing to Russia, plain and simple. I.e., a "Gas in our lifetime" moment.]
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Raising Fears, Kiev Seeks New Gas Talks
KIEV -- Ukraine needs new talks to improve the terms of last week's gas agreement with Russia, a senior aide to President Viktor Yushchenko said Friday, raising fears of new gas supply disruptions to Europe.
The deal, reached by Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, came as a relief for Europe after a two-week cutoff in Russian gas supplies...
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Labour's Still Happy to Steal Our Cash to Encourage Idleness
The welfare state is the embodiment of Government failure in modern Britain. Hugely expensive, gripped by bureaucratic paralysis, riddled with fraud and abuse, it represents an oppressive burden for working people who have to pay for it but receive little real support in return. At the same time it promotes mass idleness and fecklessness by lavishing rewards on those who contribute nothing to society.
[ah but it permanently guarantees votes to the party that hands out the cash...]
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The Pull Peddlers
The article below reports on one of the key reasons why the bank bailout is failing and will continue to fail.
When the government distributes money, it does not do so on the basis of economic calculations—not even bad economic calculations. Instead, it distributes the money on the basis of political expediency, in an attempt to placate various pressure groups.
See, for example, Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank's admission that he engineered a Treasury bailout of a small Boston bank because it was owned by blacks.
The whole article describes how the Treasury Department's disbursement of hundreds of billions of dollars is degenerating into a contest between the congressional delegations of various states to see who can pressure the Treasury to send home the most pork-barrel money...
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WHAT CAN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION LEARN FROM ZIMBABWE?
Zimbabwe is in an economic mess because its totalitarian leader decided the best way to maintain power was to reshape the national economy according to the passions and fads of his people, says Schlomach:
- Complaints arose that large, white-owned farms continued to flourish, so he expropriated them.
- When the economy shuddered, he tried to make up the loss with government spending.
- And when he couldn't tax enough, he started printing lots of money.
- In just four months, the Federal Reserve has more than doubled our nation's monetary base, setting the stage for historically unprecedented inflation.
- This has been in reaction to a serious economic downturn brought on by government policies that practically bribed us all to bid up house prices.
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Debunking the Stimulus Myth: Only 3% Allotted for Road, Bridge Spending
You've heard it here, there and everywhere in the news media - the time is now for a big-government economic stimulus package, not only to revive the economy, but to salvage America's crumbling infrastructure.
That's one of the selling points used over and over again by pundits, as they are paraded out repeatedly on broadcast and cable network news programs - that so-called "shovel-ready" projects will challenge economic woes by revitalizing something we need to do anyway. But only 3 percent of the Obama stimulus plan is slated for such projects.
"The total size of the plan is about $750 to $800 billion - roughly $300 billion is for tax cuts for businesses and individuals," CBS correspondent Chip Reid said on CBS's Jan. 12 "The Early Show." "The rest will be spent on everything from roads and bridges to renewable energy to create three to 4 million jobs. Republicans are raising red flags about the amount of spending."
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CNN Re-Plays Zakaria's Fallacious 'Bush's Biggest Mistake'
CNN was so pleased with Zakaria's commentary from last Sunday that they re-ran it on Thursday afternoon to counter House Minority Leader John Boehner's advocacy of tax cuts to boost the economy.
In the noon hour Thursday CNN re-played Zakaria's commentary from the top of his January 18 show, in which he denounced the tax cuts as
“the single most significant bad decision George Bush made.”
Though federal revenue from income taxes has soared faster than inflation, Zakaria, editor of Newsweek's [ah, that explains it] international edition, blamed the tax cuts for the rising deficit...
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Climate: Change You Can't Believe In
...according to a recent Rasmussen Poll, there's one change that only 41% of Americans can believe in - manmade climate change. That's down from 47% just nine months ago, and before moving the country down an unpopular green-paved road to disaster, the "unity" promising freshman president would be well advised to understand why.
For starters, the rapidly expanding number of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) dissenting international scientists, many rising from within the alarmists' own ranks, has thoroughly shredded the misleading fallacy of "consensus." And a full decade sans warming and concluding with pronounced cooling despite ever-rising atmospheric CO2 levels has left Green House Gas (GHG) force-feeders with frosty egg on their faces. [snip]
And yet, this IPCC report, much-hyped-and-hallowed by alarmists and media-drones alike, represents the combined work of only 52 carefully cherry-picked UN scientists. But the 231-page U.S. Senate Minority Report containing the IPCC-countering findings of more than 12 times that number (over 650 dissenting -- including many current and former UN IPCC -- scientists) is either gratuitously ridiculed or all but ignored by these same agents. And last year's Manhattan Declaration was similarly impressive in its signatories, and similarly mistreated by alarmists and their hand-puppets throughout the green-entranced MSM. [snip]
When in fact, even were consensus a foundation of science, there exists infinitely more that Al Gore, James Hansen, Gavin Schmidt, Joe Romm, Kevin Grandia et al are snake-oil salesmen than of any anthropogenic impact on climate. And recent claims of a vaguely worded on-line survey with a 30% response rate from unnamed "scientists" being touted by the alarmists as proof otherwise change nothing.
So 59% of Americans aren't buying it; climate experts across the globe aren't behind it; yet the alarmists continue to sell it and Democratic politicians remain steady customers...
[it's going to be a battle royal, as the recent election has proved to many {likely not least of which he elected} that, with the media on your side, all things are possible. I.e., it'll be up to us - arm yourself: long but highly referenced, Highly Recommended >]
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Obama to Let States Restrict Emissions Standards
Washington - President Obama on Monday will direct federal regulators to move swiftly to grant California and 13 other states the right to set strict automobile emissions and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday evening.
The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and marks a sharp reversal from Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions [and thereby segment the market into unmanageable pieces to further accelerate an industry's demise we're already spending billions to rescue. Brilliant.]
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WaPo Touts Waxman, Pelosi, and Boxer as Pragmatists Who'll Reawaken 'Sleeping Beauty' of Regulation
California
Monday’s Washington Post touted on page A3 how "Californians Shape Up as Force on Environmental Policy," over three large pictures of liberals Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi, and Barbara Boxer. Something amazing followed: the word "liberal" is never used in the piece to describe them. (Pelosi merely is pressed to "find common ground between conservative and liberal Democrats.") Reporter Lyndsey Layton’s feat began in paragraph one:California Democrats will assume pivotal roles in the new Congress and White House, giving the state an outsize influence over federal policy and increasing the likelihood that its culture of activist regulation will be imported to Washington.
Layton also found a liberal political scientist to suggest moderation will follow:Barbara Sinclair, a political scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, said the Californians are pragmatic and mindful of overreaching. "All these folks really want to make policy change," she said. "On the other hand, they very, very much want to stay in power."
To complete this act of journalistic servility to the California liberals, Layton quoted from a telephone interview with Senator Boxer, but the sophisticated reader would wonder why the Post would need a phone interview to solicit the press-release quotes that were offered:"Californians coming, they don't have to rewrite the laws. They just have to enforce them. It's like the EPA has been asleep for eight years. The Californians are coming to wake the sleeping beauty."
Only liberals would see an entrenched regulatory agency as a "sleeping beauty."
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SUNDOWN FOR CALIFORNIA
Since 2000, California's job growth rate has lagged behind the national average by almost 20 percent. Rapid population growth, once synonymous with the state, has slowed dramatically. Most troubling of all, domestic out-migration, about even in 2001, swelled to over 260,000 in 2007 and now surpasses international immigration, says Joel Kotkin, presidential fellow at Chapman University.
All of this suggests a historical slide of California's role as a bastion of upward mobility:
- In 1946, Californians enjoyed the nation's highest living standards and the third highest per-capita income, and as recently as the 1980s, Californians generally got richer faster than other Americans did.
- However, in 2008, median household income growth trailed the national average while the already large divide between the social classes grew faster than in the rest of the country.
- Today, California has the 15th highest poverty rate in the nation; only New York and the District of Columbia fare worse if the cost of living is factored in.
[policies matter - we're being mismanaged, yet we keep sending the same folks back]
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"I Hope Obama Fails"
[for clarity]
Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show, January 16
I got a request here from a major American print publication. "Dear Rush: For the Obama [Immaculate] Inauguration we are asking a handful of very prominent politicians, statesmen, scholars, businessmen, commentators, and economists to write 400 words on their hope for the Obama presidency. We would love to include you. If you could send us 400 words on your hope for the Obama presidency, we need it by Monday night, that would be ideal." Now, we're caught in this trap again. The premise is, what is your "hope." My hope, and please understand me when I say this. I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, "Well, I hope he succeeds. We've got to give him a chance." Why?... I've been listening to Barack Obama for a year and a half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don't want them to succeed.
If I wanted Obama to succeed, I'd be happy the Republicans have laid down. And I would be encouraging Republicans to lay down and support him. Look, what he's talking about is the absorption of as much of the private sector by the US government as possible, from the banking business, to the mortgage industry, the automobile business, to health care. I do not want the government in charge of all of these things. I don't want this to work. So I'm thinking of replying to the guy, "Okay, I'll send you a response, but I don't need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails."… Why not? Why is it any different, what's new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what's gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it?
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Friday, January 23, 2009
A Comedy of Tax Errors
Make no mistake about it: Tim Geithner made mistakes. (Snip) Grassley asked what software he used to prepare his taxes. "These are my responsibility, not the tax software's responsibility," Geithner replied, "but I used TurboTax." A future Treasury secretary using TurboTax? The mistakes were multiplying.
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[not funny: how do we tell our children what's right and wrong when this guy is likely to be confirmed as head tax guy - despite intentionally cheating on his taxes. Character is critical - when did we forget that?
There's still time {they vote Monday}, tell 'em:
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[not funny: how do we tell our children what's right and wrong when this guy is likely to be confirmed as head tax guy - despite intentionally cheating on his taxes. Character is critical - when did we forget that?
There's still time {they vote Monday}, tell 'em:
"Character is critical - Do Not Confirm Geithner"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
Face of Defense: Mother, Daughter Enlist in Army Reserve
Altoon, like many parents, was concerned about the possibility of Megan deploying to a combat zone.
After learning about the Army Reserve, Altoon, a postal carrier in Fremont, decided that she, too, would become a soldier.
Mother and daughter enlisted in the same military occupational specialty -- computer information specialist -- and were assigned to the same unit, the 351st Civil Affairs Command in Mountain View, Calif.
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Iraqi Scouts Are Back
[HT:GP]
Originally formed in 1954 and silenced during the reign of former President Saddam Hussein, the voices of the Iraqi Boy Scouts are rising once again. The new Iraqi Scouts have been meeting for seven months now. Technology has allowed these young men to talk with their American counterparts back in Texas and Georgia through a video conference.
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Obama Outlaws Legal Interrogation Methods, With An Out
This particular Executive Order proclaims that the only interrogation methods to be used on detainees in the War on Terror are those found in the Army Field Manual . As media reports are already starting to show, that's a bit problematic:
The executive order says everyone in custody should be questioned under the Army Field Manual, which is intended for honorable combatants, meaning POWs in a military conflict. The rule would prevent trained interrogators at the CIA from using lawful interrogation techniques against terrorists who have been trained to withstand Army Field Manual techniques.So by this order, Obama is not outlawing so-called torture of detainees, but preventing the use by our national security apparatus of certain legal interrogation techniques that have kept us safe for the past 7+ years...
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Islamic Terrorists Forming Cells In America
Hezbollah could be one of the first security challenges faced by the new Obama administration. An official government report concludes the Iranian-backed Islamic terror group has been forming sleeper cells throughout the United States that could become operational. The report estimates Hezbollah could become a much more potent national security threat by 2014.
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U.S. Intercepts Iranian Arms-Smuggling Ship
U.S. defense officials say a Navy vessel that is part of the new piracy task force intercepted and searched an Iranian-owned ship that officials feared was carrying arms to Hamas.
Two defense officials say the Cypriot-flagged commercial vessel was tracked by a U.S. Navy ship in the Red Sea over the weekend. One official says it was boarded with the consent of the vessel's crew on Monday and Tuesday.
The search turned up ammunition that included artillery shells. But one official said that since Hamas is not known to use artillery, officials are now uncertain who the intended recipient was. They're asking Egypt to do another search when the ship arrives in port.
Israeli officials said they believe the ship was headed for Hezbollah, not Hamas.
[oh well, false alarm then]
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The dangerous illusion of independent terrorists
Since the 9/11 attacks in New York, the world has completely misconceived the age of terror.
The radical increase in the lethality, range, political consequence and strategic influence of terrorists comes not from their being non-state actors at all. Instead it comes from their being sponsored by states.
Sometimes they are the instruments of states and at other times they make strategic alliances with states.
A terrorist group operating without any state sponsorship is an infinitely less dangerous outfit than a terrorist group operating with the co-operation of even the most ramshackle state.
However, states not only co-operate with terrorists, in many cases they direct and even found the terrorists...
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No room for Jews in the West Bank
There will be no room for Jews or settlements in the West Bank because their presence there will always be an obstacle to peace with Israel, Ahmed Qurei, head of the Palestinian Authority 'negotiating' team, said at the weekend...
[the West Bank; you know, part of the 1/3 of land ceded to Jews by the UN (2/3 to Arabs) which Jordan 'annexed', and the world did nothing]
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Likely National Security Advisor Suggested NATO Forces For West Bank
Jerusalem - The man widely reported to be the leading candidate to become President-elect Obama’s national security advisor has reportedly proposed putting NATO forces in the West Bank in place of Israeli security forces – an idea that makes some Israelis uncomfortable. (Snip) Israel argues that it must maintain security control over the West Bank because its major population centers are vulnerable to rocket attacks...
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'Companies could be sued over climate change'
The scare
In early December 2008, The Guardian, a newspaper of the British Left and an unquestioning true-believer in the catastrophist version of climate alarm, quoted Professor Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, as saying computer models such as one that he has developed can now ascribe individual extreme-weather events to anthropogenic "global warming", allowing environmental pressure groups to sue the corporations they believe are to blame for the catastrophic heating of the planet. Professor Allen joked, "We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more likely it was made by human activity."
The truth
Even the UN's climate panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, admits in its 2001 report that the climate is a "complex, non-linear, chaotic object" whose long-run evolution cannot be predicted by any method. In this the panel echoes the celebrated paper Deterministic Non-Periodic Flow, with which the mathematician Edward Lorenz founded the new mathematical discipline of chaos theory in 1963. Precisely because the climate is, in mathematical terms, a chaotic object, it is altogether impossible to predict the likelihood, timing, magnitude, duration, or even the sign of any "phase transition" that disrupts the steady state of the object. For this reason, it is not possible to ascribe individual extreme-weather events to "global warming", as the IPCC makes explicitly clear in both its 2001 and 2007 reports.
In practice, the international, alarmist Left has taken very great care not to get into court battles over the science behind "global warming", because the courts, unlike the majority of the news media, are obliged to give a full and fair hearing to both sides of the story. Therefore, all of the "global warming" court cases instigated by the alarmist faction have been sweetheart cases, where both sides secretly want the same outcome. The recent case by lavishly-funded environmental groups against the US Secretary of the Interior to order him to make a decision on listing polar bears as an "endangered species" was a prime example: Mr. Kempthorne was as much a true-believer as those who were apparently suing him, and the court was in effect used as a mere rubber-stamp, in which no real argument was heard.
The alarmist faction knows that, if it were to bring a case against a corporation whose executives were not minded merely to believe in the extremist presentation of "global warming" just because it is temporarily in fashion, they would lose. The case of Dimmock v. Secretaries of State for Education and for the Environment in the UK in 2007 was a very clear warning. The UK Government threw all of the resources of the taxpayer and of the Meteorological Office at the case, attempting to defend Al Gore's sci-fi comedy horror movie against the plaintiff's allegation that it was serially and seriously inaccurate. The judge, having heard both sides, said bluntly of Al Gore that "the Armageddon scenario that he depicts is not based on any scientific view". A few more judgments like that and the "global warming" fantasy would rapidly collapse. End of scare.
Slowly but surely, the number of news media willing to give credence to fantasies such as those which Professor Allen puts forward is declining as the truth dawns: carbon dioxide's impact on "global warming" is small, harmless, and largely beneficial.
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Loblaws bags a nickel starting tomorrow
It's like there's a scarlet letter burned across Jennifer Sutcliffe's forehead as she hastily piles eight bags of groceries into the cart – ''P.'' For plastic. For polluter.''I have cats. I use them for the litter,''
she clarifies apologetically. Not good enough. Gazing down the line of nine open cashiers, Sutcliffe is the only one who didn't BYOB. The 40-year-old retreats from the Loblaws store, which as of tomorrow will begin a plastic fee of 5 cents per bag...
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NYT: Make The Mormons Walk To Wal-Mart
In the social circles of the New York Times editorialists, it's OK to have one kid. Two is pushing the envelope. Three or more is déclassé, and a threat to the survival of the planet.
That being so, there's really no reason to let any car bigger than a Prius be built. Doing so just encourages the unenlightened to overbreed.
And so it is that in its editorial of today, the Grey-but-barren Lady suggests that as a condition of the Detroit bailout,
"Congress could consider demanding that Detroit simply phase out S.U.V.’s and vans by a certain date."[and that's the defining aspect of the Green Religion; adherence is compulsory {come to think of it, I can think of a 2nd religion with the same mindset... maybe we should refer to this as the march to the Green Global Caliphate ]
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