67 Years of the USO

Since just before World War II, the USO has been the bridge between the American people and our men and women in uniform, conveying the heartfelt appreciation and support of a grateful nation. Whether it is a quiet place to go for rest and relaxation, movies refreshments, or a friendly face, the USO consistently delivers its special brand of service to the military.

[NOT a government entity - relies fully on donations.]



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[Valentine's day is approaching and they've a neat AT&T prepaid calling card gift program...]


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Muslim protesters 'branded British soldiers as rapists and baby killers' at homecoming parade

Subject: txt islm -
Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment were greeted by protesters screaming the hostile jeers and holding placards as they marched through Luton last year.

A group of Muslim protesters shouted 'murderers', 'rapists', 'baby killers' and chanted 'burn in hell' at soldiers on a homecoming parade from Iraq, a court heard today.

Now it's the infuriated onlookers who are on trial for 'hate speech'...

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The Last Nail in Europe's Coffin

Subject: txt islm -
Because of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership between the European Union and Islamic states in the Middle East, by the year 2050, the Islamic population of Europe will be 25% to 30% of the total population. There will be perhaps over 100 million Muslims in Europe. Partnership? More like a suicide pact.

Why would Europe get involved again with such evil and simultaneously take in such a diabolical and disastrous immigration bomb? And that's what this is. Geert Wilders said it in a speech at Columbia University in October 2009: "Make no mistake: Islam has always attempted to conquer Europe. Spain fell in the 8th century. Constantinople fell in the 15th century. Vienna and Poland were threatened, and now, in the 21st century, Islam is trying again. This time not with military armies, but through migration and demography."

Why cause that social strain? Why expose the European Union to the inevitable violence? The Euro-Med Partnership could be the final nail in the lid of Europe's coffin.

The effects on European civilization, and on Europe's relationship with the United States, are all too easy to imagine. And the U.S.-Muslim engagement document, the blueprint for the Obama administration's relationship with Muslim countries, parallels these plans...

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Party of God on war footing

Subject: txt israel -
Hezbollah says it has regrouped since the 2006 conflict with Israel and is in a stronger position for a new war between Israel and Lebanon. The group's international spokesman, Ibrahim Mousawi, told The Australian yesterday that if Israel and Lebanon returned to war,

''we will do something that they will regret ... Hezbollah is ready."

[One of Israel's 'partners in peace'.]

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China says military arsenal comparable with West

Subject: txt intl nsec -
Beijing - China's military now possesses most of the sophisticated weapon systems found in the arsenals of developed Western nations, the country's defense minister said in comments published Monday. Many of China's systems, including the J-10 fighter jet, latest-generation tanks, navy destroyers, and cruise and intercontinental ballistic missiles, match or are close to matching the capabilities of those in the West...

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China Bans Non-Government Online-Video Sites

Subject: txt intl -
China has moved to restrict videos online — including those posted on video-sharing Web sites — to state-controlled sites and to require those Internet providers to delete and report a variety of content. It wasn't immediately clear how the new rules would affect YouTube and other providers that host Web sites based in other countries that are available in China...

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NYT Again Praises Communist China for Getting Things Done

Subject: txt hcare grn msm fnn - sclm china -
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman again showed a disturbing affection for China's dictatorship in his Wednesday column attacking Republican stubbornness on health care and climate change legislation ("Our One-Party Democracy").

Friedman pleaded for "enlightened" autocrats, able to get things accomplished against the will of the people, for their own good...

[Nobel prize winner. Naturally.]

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U.S. Economy: Trade Gap Grows as Oil Prices Jump

Subject: txt trade engry -
Washington - The trade deficit in the U.S. widened in November more than anticipated as imports climbed faster than exports.

The gap expanded 9.7 percent to $36.4 billion, the highest level since January, from a revised $33.2 billion in October, Commerce Department data showed today in Washington. Imports increased 2.6 percent, reflecting a jump in oil prices...

[And we're doing nothing to increase our supply here at home.]

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Firms announce big oil find beneath shallow Gulf waters

Subject: txt engry -
McMoRan Exploration Co. today announced what it said could be one of the largest oil and natural gas discoveries in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico in decades. The discovery was made at the Davy Jones ultra-deep prospect located on South Marsh Island Block 230 in about 20 feet of water and 10 miles off the Louisiana coast... [snip]

That puts the estimated the size of the discovery close to 2 trillion cubic feet of resources, rivaling some oil and gas discoveries in the deep water Gulf.

"This is going to be a huge reserve," McMoRan’s co-chairman, James R. Moffett, said in a conference call this morning. ... What’s more, Energy XXI Chairman and CEO John Schiller said the discovery "verifies the ultra-deep potential of the Gulf of Mexico shelf and opens this horizon as a major exploration frontier."

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Dem governor blasts Sec. Salazar for doing the bidding of green groups

Subject: txt engry -
Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) on Friday said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has gone too far to placate environmental groups when it comes to oil and gas drilling policy. Salazar last week said Interior is expanding environmental reviews and increasing public input before leasing federal lands to energy companies, greatly expanding the time that will be required to develop new deposit finds.

"Making it harder for America to develop its own resources toward energy independence just doesn't make sense at a time like this"

[It makes sense at no time. But yet another extremist appointment - what did anyone expect?]

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Rice University analysis questions U.S. ethanol subsidies

Subject: txt grn engry -
Federal taxpayers forked over $1.95 a gallon in ethanol subsidies in 2008 on top of the retail gasoline price, a new white paper from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy found.

The 118-page analysis from the Houston-based institute says the United States needs to rethink its policy of promoting ethanol...

[Ya think? It's an inferior fuel (compared to petroleum-based) and is a staple food...]

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Plan for 1,800-mile ethanol pipeline unveiled

Subject: txt engry -
Plans were disclosed Wednesday for an 1,800-mile long pipeline, running across Indiana and north of Indianapolis, to carry ethanol made in the Midwest to new markets for the fuel in the eastern United States.

If financing can be secured, the $4 billion project proposed by POET Ethanol Products, based in South Dakota, and Magellan Midstream Partners in Texas would carry about 3.6 billion gallons a year of the fuel made from corn

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White House: Stim bill 'saved or created' 1.7 million jobs

Subject: txt mny fnn -
Barack Obama's stimulus plan has been such a monumental failure that even the AP, who we've come to know as the Abracadabra Press, recently reported that the measure has had no effect on job growth.

Perhaps all the negative press would call for the president to change his view on the stimulus package, perhaps by not talking about it at all, and get serious about measures that will trigger job growth in the U.S.

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Predictions of Worsening Unemployment for Blacks, Latinos

Subject: txt mny msm -
The Washington Post publicizing a report by the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI), written helpfully enough that the word "liberal" isn’t used, is usually a media-bias staple for economic gearheads. But Friday’s Post report by V. Dion Haynes might be seen by other Obama-helpers in the media as an unwelcome story.

The headline: "U.S. unemployment rate for blacks projected to hit 25-year high."

Unemployment for African Americans is projected to reach a 25-year high this year, according to a study released Thursday by an economic think tank, with the national rate soaring to 17.2 percent and the rates in five states exceeding 20 percent...

Naturally news like this was not a front-page story. It topped the "Washington Business" section on page A-20. But it's noteworthy that EPI was the long-time policy-research home of Jared Bernstein, who is now Vice President Biden’s chief economist and one of Team Obama’s economics explainers to the media.

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What Bias? re: CNN: December Layoffs Exceed Expectations...But Still Good News

Subject: txt msm mny -
CNN's efforts to spin the current economy have gotten to the point of being ridiculous.

For three days in a row, a series of reports all showed persistent layoffs above expectations, and in each case CNN.com inexplicably reported optimism.

First up was an ADP report released Wednesday which tracked the economy from the side of business owners and how many workers they laid off. Instead of showing the complete picture, CNN chose to present a decidedly upbeat angle.

CNN Money writers Jessica Dickler and Hibah Yousuf set the tone as they worked hard to spin unexpected layoffs as a positive sign in their rosy-headlined "Job Picture Gets a Little Bit Brighter":

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HIGH-FLYING HOME-SCHOOLERS

Subject: txt edu -
According to a report by the National Home Education Research Institute released this year:

• Home-schooled students score 34 to 39 percentage points above the average standardized test score.
• This puts the home-school national average score at about the 80th percentile in language arts, math, social studies and almost 90th percentile in reading.

More impressive than these test scores is the study's analysis of the variables that impact standardized test scores, such as parents' level of education and family income, says Mackinac:

• Like students in conventional schools, home-schoolers with parents who have college degrees and higher income perform better than homeschoolers whose parents have no college degrees and lower family income.
• But the difference between the two is much smaller than in conventional schools, and based on these two variables, the home-schooled students that would be predicted to perform the most poorly still outrank the national average.
• For example, home-schoolers whose parents do not have college degrees still tested in the 83rd percentile.

Source: Michael D. Van Beek, "High-Flying Home-Schoolers," Mackinac, December 18, 2009.

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To Lead Schools, Christie Picks Voucher Advocate

Subject: txt 2010 edu -
TRENTON - The man once described by teachers’ union leaders as “the antithesis of everything we hold sacred about public education” was chosen to serve as state education commissioner by Governor-elect Christopher J. Christie on Wednesday. The nomination of Bret D. Schundler to the post underscored the governor’s determination to press ahead with his push for school vouchers, more charter schools and merit pay for teachers.

[Finally. As so consistently the case, an election was required.]

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Obama, Democrats Put Politics Above Educating D.C.’s Youth

Subject: txt edu -
Black leaders say that President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and Congress have put politics ahead of helping low-income children in the District of Columbia by refusing to support a program that allows 1,700 children to go to a private school, including the school Obama’s two daughters attend. Congress did not reauthorize funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) in the 2010-11 federal budget...

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US Kids grade Obama a C-minus after first year

[And we're reporting on what children think - why?]

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-end 100121 post-

Scott Brown roars to Senate upset win

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State Sen. Scott Brown has pulled a Massachusetts miracle and has upset his Democratic rival to capture the open U.S. Senate seat by a 7 point margin. Brown, 50, of Wrentham, will roll into Washington as the nation struggles with health-care reform. But Brown has vowed to be “the 41st Senator” that will defeat the measure. Democrat Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, has gone down in defeat.

Little guy sends message to Washington
Washington Examiner, by Michael Barone

The final percentages aren't in as this is written, but it's plain that Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley by a substantial margin in the race for the remainder of the late Edward Kennedy's Senate term. (snip)Obama and "the educated class" think they know what is best for the little guy. The voters of Massachusetts (Massachusetts!) beg to differ.

Comments:
I think it's time to rent: "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

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Brown ready to go to DC 'without delay'


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What Bias?

[Meanwhile, in our professional media...]

MSNBC: Scott Brown's A 'Homophobic, Racist, Teabagging Supporter of Violence Against Women'
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CNN: 'Angry and Scared' People Caused Scott Brown's Rise
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CNN: Coakley Swamped by 'Tidal Wave of Voter Rage'
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MSNBC: Brown Massachusetts Victory Racist
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NYT: Brown vote is conservative who are lashing out
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[The message: if you don't agree with liberal thought you're angry and potentially violent... {ohandhomophobicandracist}]
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POLL: Voters See Media As Liberal, Biased & Too Powerful

Subject: txt 2010 msm bias -
A new survey from Scott Rasmussen finds that more than half of all voters (51%) believe "the average reporter is more liberal than they are," and two-thirds (67%) think the media have "too much power and influence over government decisions."

According to Rasmussen: "Only 20% of all voters say most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of a political campaign. Seventy-two percent (72%) say most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win."

Here are excerpts from the January 14 report:

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image toon 1st fnn msm bias libs = ED SCHULTZ BUTT FACE

Obama's Health Care Discrimination

Subject: txt hcare crpt -
In a sweetheart deal truck behind closed doors -- you know, during that transparent process being covered by No-SeeSpan -- unions will receive a special dispensation from health care taxes which the rest of us will have to pay. The New York Post's Carl Campanile reports on the story, writing:

[The deal] will save union employees at least $60 billion over the years involved, while others won't be as lucky - they'll have to cough up almost $90 billion.

The 40 percent excise tax on what have come to be called "Cadillac" health-care plans would exempt collective-bargaining contracts covering government employees and other union members until Jan. 1, 2018.

Moreover, Campanile tells us, "the value of [union] dental and vision plans would be exempt from the tax even after the deal expires in eight years ..."

It gets even more invidious, though. While the 40-percent tax will be levied on plans worth $8,900 or more for individuals and $24,000 or more for families, "[t]he threshold will be even higher for certain plans with many older workers and women -- a move to benefit unions with a high proportion of female membership ... ," wrote Campanile.

Ah, the change of Obama's utopia: from each according to his political means, to each according to the party's political needs.

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imae toon - crpt = Congress & Union cash-shake

More Details on Obama's Big Bribe to Big Labor

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Congress Daily is reporting that union lobbyists on Capitol Hill today scored a tentative deal that would exempt "collectively bargained healthcare plans" from the so-called Cadillac Tax on high-cost policies. As The American Spectator's Philip Klein notes, this means that two Americans receiving identical health-care benefits could be taxed differently if one happened to be a member of a union and the other not.

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txt hcare crpt = Unions v Joe 6-pack universal care

Health-plan tax would hit California hard

Subject: hcar cali -
An arcane provision in the Senate health bill calls for paying for expanded health benefits in part by taxing health insurers, like Kaiser Permanente, which covers about 6.6 million Californians, while exempting plans offered by large employers who pay their employees' claims.

Kaiser and other health plans, small businesses and California medical groups that rely on managed care payments are lobbying congressional leaders to keep the provision out of a final version of the bill - or at least apply the tax to all health plans.

"It's a real killer for California. Why should California pay more for health care reform than, say, Idaho or New York? It's not fair," said Don Crane, chief executive of the California Association of Physician Groups, which represents medical groups reimbursed by managed-care policies.

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Reality Check...

Subject: txt hcare mny -

"In 2008, consumers were only directly responsible for 11.9 percent of total national healthcare expenditures, down from 43 percent in 1965, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This means that someone other than consumers pays roughly 88 percent of all healthcare costs, giving consumers little incentive to mind costs and much incentive to over-consume."

Source: The American.

US health spending as percentage of GDP in various years.

1965: 6%

1975: 8%

1985: 11%

1995: 14%

2005: 16%

Source: US Embassy.
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George Will: Dems 'Resort to Serial Corruption' to Pass ObamaCare

Subject: txt hcare msm -
George Will on Sunday spoke an inconvenient truth about healthcare reform the Obama-loving media have dishonestly withheld from the public since this battle began: in order to get something passed, Democrats have resorted to "serial corruption."

Visibly amused by the socialist blatherings of "This Week" guests Donna Brazile and Katrina vanden Heuvel, Will during the Roundtable segment said,

"They're trying to pass a bill that is, A, huge, B, radical, C, unpopular, and, therefore, D, they have no choice but to resort to serial corruption."

ABC's lone regular conservative contributor then elaborated as Brazile and vanden Heuvel grunted and moaned in the background (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, relevant section at 3:20):

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White House Won’t Advocate Posting Health Care Bill 72 Hours Before Vote

Subject: txt hcare crpt bdd -
White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs, who has avoided answering questions on whether health care negotiations should be broadcast on C-SPAN, declined to say yesterday whether President Barack Obama would advocate posting the final negotiated bill on the Internet for 72 hours before it is voted on by the House and Senate.

''I don’t know the exact answer to 72,'' ... ''What has gone through the process at this point is no surprise to anyone'' [?!?]

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image toon 1st fnn hcare crpt = Keep out transparentcy operation

Venezuela Nationalizes French-Colombian Retailer Exito

Subject: txt intl sclm bbro libs -
CARACAS --President Hugo Chavez ordered Sunday the seizure of a French-owned retail chain on accusations that it raised prices after Venezuela devalued the currency by half. "Until when are we going to allow this to happen?" Chavez asked during his Sunday television program in reference to the alleged price hike by Almacenes Exito, headquartered in Colombia and controlled by French retailer Casino Guichard-Perrachon S.A....

[Can you imagine a national leader dictating to private industry like this? It's analogous to a US president imposing taxes on businesses for the employee bonuses it pays - bizarre...]

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Beware of Democrats' OTHER Public Option

Subject: txt sclm bbro edu lbrty -
While Americans were becoming increasingly disenchanted with the health care reform proposals passed by Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, another government takeover proposal was in the works. -- This time the Democrats want the federal government to be in charge of student loans. After health care, families point to education as the most important part of a family savings plan.

If you thought the health care public option was bad, get a load of this: the student loan legislation does not just set up a government-run option for student lending, the bill makes the government the only option.

It promises to bring complete federalization of the student loan process to a private marketplace.

The only think that's holding Democrats back from passing this legislation is the tricky business of trying to get the health care bill passed in time for the president to have a grand signing ceremony before his State of the Union address. Iowa Democrat Sen. Tom Harkin’s intends to jam this single-payer student loan system through an unpopular process known as "reconciliation," all the while ignoring any of the bipartisan alternatives that have been presented... [snip]

When it comes to student loans, the last thing Americans need is another government takeover. Everyone better pay attention to what’s going on while all eyes are fixed on the health care bill, or that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

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Worst. 'Recovery.' Ever. Two Fed Charts Old Media Probably Won't Like -- Or Use

Subject: txt mny - msm -
The Federal Reserve of Minneapolis has posted a series of charts comparing the current recession -- as defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research, to previous recessions dating back to the end of World War II.

The charts definitely show how utterly wrong reporters like the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa are when they claim that there has been anything resembling a "rebound" since the economy hit bottom from a growth standpoint in the second quarter of 2009 (the economy has yet to see an employment bottom).

They also explain why AP reporter Martin Crutsinger seems to have tired of trying to put a "getting better" face on things in the past couple of days (as seen here and here).

Here are the two mind-numbing creations in question, the first showing changes in output (GDP) and the second showing changes in employment:

Morrissey's capsule summary:

"The economic policies of the Obama administration have lengthened the recession and delayed what would be the normal recovery process, mainly by signaling to investors and businesses that costs will go up in taxes and energy prices, as well as burdensome mandates on health insurance. As a result, people are not investing their money into job-creating risk but are sheltering their cash instead."

The Obama administration's "Uncertainty Economy" continues to wreak absolute havoc.

Given what the first stimulus hasn't accomplished, any serious attempt at a second stimulus that based on history going back to the 1930s would be just as ineffective will have to call into question whether our government really wants the economy to recover.

In the meantime, I hope the folks at the Minneapolis Fed aren't waiting by the phone for calls from establishment media journalists requesting explanations and clarifications. They'll be pretty lonely if they are.

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mage toon = mny = White house wrecking economy-jobs

Public Way Ahead of Treasury Officials On Housing Crisis

Subject: txt mny -
The New York Times reports that

“the Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.”

The article goes on to say that “Treasury officials appear to have concluded that growing numbers of delinquent borrowers simply lack enough income to afford their homes and must be eased out.”

Voters reached that conclusion long ago, according to a number of Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveys....

[Previously seen here, but may be reviewed again here.]

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Fixing the Financial System: The Fix Is In

Subject: txt crpt mny bbro libs - bdd -
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was created by Congress "to examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." But look at what is off-limits.

There are 22 specific causes of the crisis that the commission is required to examine and report on... [snip]

This laundry list implies that the creators of the commission already know all the causes of the crisis and they need to just flesh out the details. There is no provision that they must examine and report on "all other causes which the commission may identify in the course of its inquiry."

Most importantly, nowhere in this list will you find the word "legislation," nor any direction to evaluate negative impacts of government interference in free markets.

This is not surprising, the commission having been created by a Reid-Pelosi Congress and approved by President Obama. I worry that the FCIC will find a myriad of problems with the financial markets, all seemingly ripe for government solutions. But they will refuse to find that government intrusion in the financial markets was a key underlying cause of the crisis.

Clearly, the Democratic Party expects to leverage the Commission's findings into more government intrusion and not less...

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Climategate: The Truth Hurts When It Hits You in the Head

Subject: txt grn -
The joke on the internet these days is

"What do Tiger Woods and Phil Jones of East Anglia University in Britain have in common? They both got hit in the head by a model." [snip]

Professors David Douglass, John Christy, Benjamin Pearson, and Fred Singer wrote a scientific paper in the International Journal of Climatology, which compared Global Climate Models (GCMs) with real observed data.

The results of these comparisons done by Prof. Douglass and his team were found to be significantly divergent. The paper states the following:

Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean.

In English, that says that the models could not be trusted. This news publicly enraged the gang led by Dr. Jones. They fired off more than 29 e-mails concerning this one paper. But the real story is that these findings did not surprise them. In one of the recently uncovered Climategate e-mails from Dr. Fred Pearce to Dr. Keith Briffa, dated the 13th of October, 1996, Dr. Pearce delivers the bad news that the data does not agree with the models.

"The models' error was not, perhaps, too surprising. As Barnett points out, they do not include vital "forcing" mechanisms that alter temperature, such as solar cycles and volcanic eruptions. Nor can they yet mimic the strength of the largest year-on-year variability in the natural system, the El Nino oscillation in the Pacific Ocean, which has a global impact on climate."

This statement means that as far back as 1996, the Jones Gang knew that the GCMs were producing significant errors and problems, but in response to their dilemma of having to deal with the truth, the Jones Gang seems to abandon all scientific methods and decides to proceed down the rabbit hole and embrace the tactics of attorneys...

[More common sense proof, if needed, that its never been about science or environment - Recommended > ]

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Illegal teen's arrest stirs sanctuary law fight

CALIFORNIA

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors' new sanctuary law - intended to block the city from alerting the feds to young illegal immigrant criminal suspects who haven't been convicted - has come into focus again with the arrest of an undocumented 15-year-old in a double slaying at a Mission District pizzeria. The youth - a native of Mexico who attends John O'Connell High School - is one of three suspects in the Sept. 20 killings

Under the revised sanctuary ordinance passed by the supervisors in November, however, the boy shouldn't have been handed to ICE unless he had been convicted - which he hasn't been...

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New White House Comm. Director: Fox News ‘Not A Traditional News Organization’

Subject: txt msm bias fnn bdd -
During a Monday video interview with the New York Times’ The Caucus blog, the new White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, joined his predecessor Anita Dunn in declaring that Fox News Channel is not a news organization:

“I have the same view of Fox that Anita had, which is that Fox is not a traditional news organization.”

[He's confused Fox with MSNBC.]

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Fox News Making More Money Than All Its Rivals, Combined

We’ve all heard it — the screech of the Fox News haters who feel perfectly free to share their low opinion of the cable-news channel with everyone within ear shot. Now comes this piece about Fox News chief Roger Ailes in The New York Times on Saturday —

At a time when the broadcast networks are struggling with diminishing audiences and profits in news, he has built Fox News into the profit engine of the News Corporation. Fox News is believed to make more money than CNN, MSNBC and the evening newscasts of NBC, ABC and CBS combined.

Now Why Do You Suppose That Is?

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