Economist: Gross abuse of data, hack scholarship, ensuing cover-up on the Himalaya's non-melting glaciers

The Economist has a great article on the gross abuse of data, hack scholarship (what "peer" review?), and the ensuing cover-up on the Himalaya's non-melting glaciers.

Off-base camp

A mistaken claim about glaciers raises questions about the UN’s climate panel

The idea that the Himalaya could lose its glaciers by 2035—glaciers which feed rivers across South and East Asia—is a dramatic and apocalyptic one. After the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said such an outcome was very likely in the assessment of the state of climate science that it made in 2007, onlookers (including this newspaper) repeated the claim with alarm. In fact, there is no reason to believe it to be true. This is good news (within limits) for Indian farmers—and bad news for the IPCC.

My hat goes off to The Economist for being honest enough to print the retraction that they were duped.

The IPCC, like ancient Gaul, is divided into three parts. Working Group I looks at the physical science of climate change. Working Group II is concerned with impacts, vulnerability and adaptation. Working Group III deals with mitigation. The claims about Himalayan glaciers come from a short “case study” in a chapter on Asia in WG-II’s report from 2007. Like all of the IPCC’s work, this was meant to be an expert assessment of relevant research, resting mostly on peer-reviewed sources but also, at times, on the “grey literature”—reports by governments and other organisations that are not commercially or academically published.

The WG-II case study cites a grey report by the WWF, an environmental group, as the source of the date 2035. The WWF in turn cites a study presented in 1999 to the International Commission on Snow and Ice (ICSI) by Syed Hasnain, chair of ICSI’s working group on Himalayan glaciers.

But the passage about 2035 that the WWF report quotes comes not from that ICSI report (which was unpublished) but from an article that appeared around the same time in Down to Earth, an Indian magazine. This article was based in part on an interview with Dr Hasnain, who was also quoted by New Scientist as saying it was possible the glaciers would be gone in 40 years. The article in Down to Earth claims that the area covered by glaciers would drop from 500,000km² to 100,000km² by 2035, a claim found in the IPCC report but not in the WWF report. This suggests the Down to Earth article was itself a source for the IPCC, though Murari Lal, a retired Indian academic, now a consultant, who was one of the four co-ordinating lead authors of the chapter, says this was not the case.

There are two further problems with the area figure. One is that the research in question was looking at all the world’s glaciers, not just the Himalaya’s. The other is that the research was looking at the prospects for 2350, not 2035.

Ooops. But what’s 300 years, give or take?

HT: Dr. A

Haiti detains Americans taking kids across border. “The church members, most from Idaho”

From the Associated Press:

Ten American Baptists were being held in the Haitian capital Sunday after trying take 33 children out of Haiti at a time of growing fears over possible child trafficking.

The church members, most from Idaho, said they were trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children. But officials said they lacked the proper documents when they were arrested Friday night in a bus along with children from 2 months to 12 years old who had survived the catastrophic earthquake.

The group said its "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission" was an effort to help abandoned children by taking them to an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic.

…

Silsby, 40, of Boise, Idaho, was asked if she didn't consider it naive to cross the border without adoption papers at a time when Haitians are so concerned about child trafficking. "By no means are we any part of that. That's exactly what we are trying to combat," she said.

…

U.S. diplomats met with the detained Americans and gave them bug spray and field rations, according to Sean Lankford of Meridian, Idaho, whose wife and 18-year-old daughter were being held.

"They have to go in front of a judge on Monday," Lankford told the AP.

"There are allegations of child trafficking and that really couldn't be farther from the truth," he added. The children "were going to get the medical attention they needed. They were going to get the clothes and the food and the love they need to be healthy and to start recovering from the tragedy that just happened."

Silsby said they had documents from the Dominican government, but did not seek any paperwork from the Haitian authorities before taking the children to the border.

She said the children were brought to the Haitian pastor by distant relatives and only those with no close family would be put up for adoption.

The 10 Americans include members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, and the East Side Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. Friends and relatives have been in touch with them through text messages and phone calls, Lankford said.

The group had described its plans on a Web site where it asked for tax-deductible contributions to help it "gather" 100 orphans and bus them to Cabarete before building a more permanent orphanage in the Dominican town of Magante.

"Given the urgent needs from this earthquake, God has laid upon our hearts the need to go now versus waiting until the permanent facility is built," the group wrote.

HT: David D.

Look who's withholding tax records from IRS...

From WND:

Feds confirm controversial group not coming clean for past 2 years

What is America's most prominent Muslim advocacy group hiding?

The Council on American-Islamic Relations is delinquent in filing its tax returns by nearly two years, the IRS has confirmed, raising new suspicions the embattled nonprofit group is concealing from the American public details about its already shadowy financial activities.

Washington-based CAIR, which receives revenue from Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, is required by federal law to file its tax returns annually with the IRS to maintain its tax-exempt status.

However, it still has not filed its 2007 returns, according to the IRS. Its 2008 tax filing is also late.

Registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, CAIR must make its finances public each year by filing IRS Form 990.

HT: David D.

An Explanation for the Decade-Long "Pause" in Global Warming?

Is there anything else that the climate computer models, which we rely on to predict future climate change, may have missed?

How many trillions of dollars are we willing to bet on it?

From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

Observations from satellites and balloons show that stratospheric water vapor has had its ups and downs lately, increasing in the 1980s and 1990s, and then dropping after 2000. The authors show that these changes occurred precisely in a narrow altitude region of the stratosphere where they would have the biggest effects on climate.

Water vapor is a highly variable gas and has long been recognized as an important player in the cocktail of greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons, nitrous oxide, and others—that affect climate.

“Current climate models do a remarkable job on water vapor near the surface. But this is different — it’s a thin wedge of the upper atmosphere that packs a wallop from one decade to the next in a way we didn’t expect,” says Susan Solomon, NOAA senior scientist and first author of the study.

Since 2000, water vapor in the stratosphere decreased by about 10 percent. The reason for the recent decline in water vapor is unknown. The new study used calculations and models to show that the cooling from this change caused surface temperatures to increase about 25 percent more slowly than they would have otherwise, due only to the increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

An increase in stratospheric water vapor in the 1990s likely had the opposite effect of increasing the rate of warming observed during that time by about 30 percent, the authors found.

California Voters Will Be Asked to Legalize Pot

It looks like a marijuana legalization initiative will be on the ballot in California this fall. Today the backers of the Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act turned in nearly 700,000 signatures; they need just 434,000 to qualify the measure for the ballot. The Los Angeles Times notes that "a Field Poll taken last April found that 56% of voters in the state and 60% in Los Angeles County want to make pot legal and tax it." It also suggests that "if passed, the initiative would put the state in conflict with federal law," which is not strictly speaking true. As Drug Policy Alliance attorney Tamar Todd noted in response to a Los Angeles Times editorial that made a similar claim a couple weeks ago, California is under no obligation to replicate federal drug prohibitions. Under the Supreme Court's expansive reading of the Commerce Clause, the federal government would have the authority to prosecute people for growing, distributing, and possessing marijuana even if the drug were no longer banned by state law. But it would not have the resources to do so consistently.

—Reason

Stay the Course: Living in the State of Denial

Nick Gillespie on Stossel: Talking Food Police

Last night, Nick Gillespie appeared on John Stossel's eponymous Fox Business channel show, as part of a program discussing nanny statism and the food police who have already come for your salt shakers, transfats, and more.

This is well worth watching.

Obamanomics

He’s not killing businesses. It’s not communism; it’s not socialism; it’s clearly not capitalism. It’s “corporatism.” Big government is propping up special interest: and it’s a continuation of Bush policies.

My question: what’s the difference between Bush/Obama corporatism and standard fascism?

From Reason TV.

Experiences Teaching Remedial Writing at Normandale Community College

Professor Jack Miller writes about his experience teaching remedial writing at Normandale Community College (Bloomington, MN):

Whatever their backgrounds, their writing problems fit into relatively few categories. Not surprisingly, they have little understanding of grammar and see it as a set of arbitrary “rules” concocted by sadistic pedants harboring grudges against the young. Punctuation is an equally baffling and dangerous area. There exists little understanding of it as a set of signals that facilitate the reader’s comprehension. Vocabulary is weak, perhaps stemming from the legions of teachers since elementary school who have feared above all that their students might suffer confusion or dismay.

Some are not sure what is done in the classroom—how to behave. They don’t know when or how to take notes. They perennially miss due dates, drift in late, drift out during the break not to return. They sabotage themselves and then seem to expect forgiveness and accommodation from their professors. Someone showing up one day after having been missing for five or six weeks, only vaguely recognized by the professor, will assume that a way can and will be found to bring him up to speed and on track with the rest of the class. Is all this the result of repeatedly being forgiven in the past? I think so.

Understanding the rudimentary conventions of research is minimal. Few are aware of what or how to quote from a source, or how and why to credit that source. Knowledge of plagiarism is far from certain, and finally there is the oft-noted paucity of a body of shared knowledge, thereby inhibiting what assumptions a writer can make about a reader. More than ever before, students live in an intellectual world of their own, a personal world where every individual’s baseline is likely to be different from that of most others and coincides with few. Coupled with extremely spotty historical knowledge, the factors outlined here make for a classroom of wide diversity, though not necessarily the “rich” diversity that college catalogues claim for their campuses.

This is a common observation that I’ve heard from college English professors.

HT: Mark J. Perry

Liberal Fantasies vs. Reality: Can you Spot the Difference?

Attack Of The Socialist-Luddites

Frightening Quotes from Environmentalists:

The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state.

—Kenneth Boulding, originator of the “Spaceship Earth”
concept (as quoted by William Tucker in Progress and Privilege, 1982)

We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion—guilt-free at last!

—Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue).

Free Enterprise really means rich people get richer. They have the freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings in the process…. Capitalism is destroying the earth.

—Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists

We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects…. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land.

—David Foreman, Earth First!

Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed.

—Pentti Linkola

If you ask me, it’d be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won’t give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other.

—Amory Lovins in The Mother Earth–Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p.22

The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species (man) upon the rest of the natural world.

—John Shuttleworth

What we’ve got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.

—Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado)

I suspect that eradicating smallpox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.

—John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs.

—John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing....This is not to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run.

—Economist editorial

We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight.

—David Foreman, Earth First!

Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.

—Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First!

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS

—Earth First! Newsletter

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets…Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.

—David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans.

—Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.

—Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

Cannibalism is a “radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation.”

—Lyall Watson, The Financial Times, 15 July 1995

Poverty For “Those People”

We, in the green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which killing a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels.

—Carl Amery

Every time you turn on an electric light, you are making another brainless baby.

—Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists

To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem.

—Lamont Cole

If there is going to be electricity, I would like it to be decentralized, small, solar-powered.

—Gar Smith, editor of the Earth Island Institute’s online magazine The Edge

The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don’t suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them.

—Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population.

—Reid Bryson, “Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man”, (1971)

The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer.

—Paul Ehrlich, in The Population Bomb (1968)

I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.

—Paul Ehrlich in (1969)

In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.

—Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)

Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity…in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion.

—Paul Ehrlich in (1976)

This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.

—Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976

There are ominous signs that the earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production—with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon… The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologist are hard-pressed to keep up with it.

—Newsweek, April 28, (1975)

This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000.

—Lowell Ponte in “The Cooling”, 1976r

If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. … This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age.

—Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)

HT: Daivd D.

A Chronology of Forgery & Deceit

The Post & Email has a very long, long history of the request for Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth from the Governor of Hawaii.

HT: LCJ

Bunker Mentality.

Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

He Joined For the Party.

Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

Quote of the Day

“A genuinely free society is committed to equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.”

HT: David Bahnsen

When NASA was NASA the US went to the moon. Now hijacked by left, we just get fake Global Warming reports.

From Pamela Geller:

In yet another blow to progress and achievement and the advancement of man, Obama aims to axe the moon mission. The White House budget proposal slated to be released Monday strips all funding for NASA’s Constellation program, a plan to resume manned moon landings by 2020. It also ends funding for the Ares I rocket that had been set to replace the space shuttle, and the Ares V cargo rocket that was to carry supplies needed for humans to go to the moon.

Instead, despite the revelations that exposed the global warming hoax, pulling the mask off the largest fraud in human history, Barack Obama is going full speed ahead with his plan to redistribute the West’s wealth to Third World nations in an attempt to halt a chimerical “global warming.”

He doesn’t seem to care that it’s all a hoax. The University of East Anglia’s climate research unit (CRU), which has been a chief source for the evidence of global warming, was exposed last year when emails came to light showing that researchers there had deliberately covered up data that didn’t fit their theory. And this week the university came under fire again, when it was found to have violated laws by refusing to hand over its raw data for inspection after the coverup came to light. Nevertheless, Obama’s top climate negotiator, Todd Stern, announced that the Obama Administration remained intent on setting the U.S. on the road to economic suicide by reducing carbon emissions by 17 percent by 2020 – a plan that would decimate the American economy and relegate us to Third World status.

HT: Rod D. Martin

Scientists broke the law by hiding climate change data: But won't be prosecuted

From the U.K. Daily Mail:

Scientist at the heart of the 'Climategate' email scandal broke the law when they refused to give raw data to the public, the privacy watchdog has ruled.

The Information Commissioner's office said University of East Anglia researchers breached the Freedom of Information Act when handling requests from climate change sceptics.

But the scientists will escape prosecution because the offences took place more than six months ago.

The revelation comes after a string of embarrassing blunders and gaffes for climate scientists and will fuel concerns that key researchers are too secretive and too arrogant.

It will pile pressure on the director of the university's climate change unit, Professor Phil Jones, who has stood aside while an investigation is carried out, and make it harder for him to return.

The ruling followed a complaint from retired engineer David Holland-66, whose Freedom of Information-requests were ignored.

Last night Mr Holland welcomed the watchdog's decision but said it was disappointing the researchers would not be prosecuted.

'All we are trying to do is make the scientists follow their own professional rules by being open, transparent and honest,' he said. 'We are not trying to show that human beings don't affect the climate, but to show that the science is not settled.'

Nothing like refusing to release the data, then hiding behind the fact that when a whistle blower does release the data, it’s over 6–months old.

Gallup Poll of Interest: Obama Job Approval Rating splits 47-47

Recent polls of interest from the Gallup Organization: Obama’s job approval rating falls to 47–47.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx

UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and magazine article

Looks like the U.K. Telegraph is doing all of the hard work. I get the feeling that the US mainstream media is in the pocket of the AGW crowd.

Right now, all of the AGW debunking is mostly coming out of the UK.

The United Nations' expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world's mountain tops on a student's dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.

The IPCC's remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.

In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.

However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.

The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master's degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.

The revelations, uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, have raised fresh questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, which was published in 2007.

The AGW crowd is getting dog-piled. Little wonder no one believes their “science” any longer — it’s more politics than research.

Climate chief was told of false glacier claims before Copenhagen

More on the politics of global warming.

From the U.K. Times Online:

The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.

Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.

The IPCC’s report underpinned the proposals at Copenhagen for drastic cuts in global emissions.

Dr Pachauri, who played a leading role at the summit, corrected the error last week after coming under media pressure. He told The Times on January 22 that he had only known about the error for a few days. He said: “I became aware of this when it was reported in the media about ten days ago. Before that, it was really not made known. Nobody brought it to my attention. There were statements, but we never looked at this 2035 number.”

Asked whether he had deliberately kept silent about the error to avoid embarrassment at Copenhagen, he said: “That’s ridiculous. It never came to my attention before the Copenhagen summit. It wasn’t in the public sphere.”

UK Telegraph: No US President has attached less importance to human rights

Looks like our international friends are becoming as quickly disillusioned with Obama as the American people are.

From the U.K. Telegraph:

As expected, Barack Obama’s 70 minute State of the Union address focused heavily on the economy and the domestic political agenda. This was hardly surprising in the aftermath of last week’s catastrophic defeat for his party in the Massachusetts special Senate election, where the Republicans scored an historic victory. American voters are turning strongly against the president’s health care reform package as well as his big government vision for the economy, which has contributed to spiraling public debt and mounting unemployment, now standing at over 10 percent.

But the scant attention paid in the State of the Union speech to US leadership was pitiful and frankly rather pathetic. The war in Afghanistan, which will soon involve a hundred thousand American troops, merited barely a paragraph. There was no mention of victory over the enemy, just a reiteration of the president’s pledge to begin a withdrawal in July 2011. Needless to say there was nothing in the speech about the importance of international alliances, and no recognition whatsoever of the sacrifices made by Great Britain and other NATO allies alongside the United States on the battlefields of Afghanistan. For Barack Obama the Special Relationship means nothing, and tonight’s address further confirmed this.

Significantly, the global war against al-Qaeda was hardly mentioned, and there were no measures outlined to enhance US security at a time of mounting threats from Islamist terrorists. Terrorism is a top issue for American voters, but President Obama displayed what can only be described as a stunning indifference towards the defence of the homeland.

The Iranian nuclear threat, likely to be the biggest foreign policy issue of 2010, was given just two lines in the speech, with a half-hearted warning of “growing consequences” for Tehran, with no details given at all. There were no words of support for Iranian protestors who have been murdered, tortured and beaten in large numbers by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s thuggish security forces, and no sign at all that the president cared about their plight. Nor was there any condemnation of the brutality of the Iranian regime, as well as its blatant sponsorship of terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

HT: Rod D. Martin

Climate Expensegate: Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill

CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson “follows the money” from Copenhagen to the U.S. Taxpayer.

The list of names of attendees is at the bottom.

Why do I have to pick up their tab?

From CBS News:

CBS News Investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports official filings and our own investigation show at least 106 people from the House and Senate attended - spouses, a doctor, a protocol expert and even a photographer.

Million Dollar Congressional Trip
Read the Congressional Expense Report

For 15 Democratic and 6 Republican Congressmen, food and rooms for two nights cost $4,406 tax dollars each. That's $2,200 a day - more than most Americans spend on their monthly mortgage payment.

CBS News asked members of Congress and staff about whether they're mindful that it's public tax dollars they're spending. Many said they had never even seen the bills or the expense reports.

Copenhagen Congressional Junket

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is a key climate change player. He went to Copenhagen last year. Last week, we asked him about the $2,200-a-day bill for room and food.

"I can't believe that," Rep. Waxman said. "I can't believe it, but I don't know."

But his name is in black and white in the expense reports. The group expense report was filed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. She wouldn't talk about it when our producer tried to ask.

Pelosi's office did offer an explanation for the high room charges. Those who stayed just two nights were charged a six-night minimum at the five-star Marriott. One staffer said, they strongly objected to no avail. You may ask how they'll negotiate a climate treaty, if they can't get a better deal on hotel rooms.

Total hotel, meeting rooms and "a couple" of $1,000-a-night hospitality suites topped $400,000.

Flights weren't cheap, either. Fifty-nine House and Senate staff flew commercial during the Copenhagen rush. They paid government rates -- $5-10,000 each -- totaling $408,064. Add three military jets -- $168,351 just for flight time -- and the bill tops $1.1 million dollars -- not including all the Obama administration officials who attended: well over 60.

In fairness, many attendees told us they did a lot of hard work, and the laid groundwork for a future global treaty.

"It was cold… I was there because I thought it was important for me to be there," Rep. Waxman said. "I didn't look at it as a pleasure trip."

But considering the size of the deficit, and the fact that that no global deal would be reached -- critics question the super-sized U.S. delegation -- more than 165 -- leaving the impression there's dollars to burn. In this case, more than a million.

Attendees
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Pelosi's husband
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
Rep. George Miller
Rep. Henry Waxman
Rep. Ed Markey
Markey’s wife
Rep. Charles Rangel
Rep. Bart Gordon
Rep. James Sensenbrenner
Sensenbrenner's wife
Rep. Sander Levin
Rep. Joe Barton
Barton daughter
Rep. Fred Upton
Rep. Earl Blumenauer
Rep. Diana DeGette
Rep. Jay Inslee
Inslee's wife
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito
Rep. Moore Capito husband
Rep. John Sullivan
Rep. Tim Ryan
Rep. GK Butterfield
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
Gifford's husband
Rep. Marsha Blackburn
President Obama
Sen. James Inhofe
Sen. John Kerry
Stacee Bako
Don Kellaher
Wilson Livingood
Brian Monahan
John Lawrence
Karen Wayland
Drew Hammill
Kate Knudson
Bridget Fallon
Bina Surgeon
Mary Frences Repko
Nona Darrell
Tony Jackson
Josh Mathis
Phil Barnett
David Cavicke
Lisa Miller
Peter Spencer
Andrea Spring
Lorie Schmitt
Greg Dotson
Alex Barron
Christopher King
Shimere Williams
Tara Rothschild
Margaret Caravelli
Gerry Waldron
Ana Unruh-Cohen
Jeff Duncan
Eben Burnham-Snyder
Joel Beauvais
Michael Goo
Tom Schreibel
Harlan Watson
Bart Forsyth
Ed Rice
Steve Rusnak
Carey Lane
Matt Dempsey
Dempsey wife
George Sugyama
Tom Hassenbohler
31 additional unnamed Senate staff

State Dept:
Special Envoy Todd Stern
Secretary Hillary Clinton
Pershing Deputy U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change
Maria Otero, Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs
Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, Deputy Permanent Rep. United States Mission to the U.N.
Daniel Reifsnyder, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment
Lilburn Trigg Talley, Director of the office of Global Change
Sue Biniaz, Deputy Legal Adviser
William Breed, Director of Climate Change Programs USAID.
Energy Dept:
Steven Chu, Energy Secretary
Jean Chu, Spouse of the Energy Secretary
Rod O'Connor, Chief of Staff
Amy Bodette, Special Assistant to the Secretary
David Sandalow, Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs
Rick Duke, Dep. Assistant Sec. for Policy and International Affairs
Holmes Hummel, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Policy and
International Affairs
Elmer Holt, Economist in the Office of Policy and International Affairs
Matt Kallman, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Policy
and International Affairs
Dan Leistikow, Director of Public Affairs
Devin Hampton, Lead Advance Representative
Interior Dept:
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar
Deputy Secretary David Hayes
Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Tom Strickland
Science Advisor Kit Batten
Senior Advisor of Global Change at USGS Tom Armstrong
USGS Director Marcia McNutt
Deputy Communications Director Matt Lee-Ashley
Jack Lynch (Security)
Dave Graham (Security)
Mike Downs (Security)
Director of Advance Tim Hartz

EPA:
Security Officer # 1 Security, Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
Marcus McClendon Director of Advance, Office of the Administrator
Security Officer # 2 Security, Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
Jennifer Jenkins Physical Scientist, Climate Change Division, Office of Air and Radiation COP 15 Negotiator
Shalini Vajjhala Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of International Affairs COP-15 Negotiator
Maurice LeFranc Senior Advisor, International Climate Change, Office of Air and Radiation COP-15 Negotiator
Kimberly Todd Klunich Technical Expert, Climate Change Division, Office of Air and Radiation COP-15 Negotiator
Leif Hockstad Environmental Engineer, Climate Change Division, Office of Air and Radiation COP-15 Negotiator
Seth Oster Associate Administrator, Office of Public Affairs
David McIntosh Associate Administrator, Office of Rep.ressional and Intergovernmental Relations
Michelle DePass Assistant Administrator, Office of International Affairs
Security Officer # 3 Security, Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
Lisa Jackson Administrator, EPA
Gina McCarthy Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation

White House Executive Office staff:
From the Office of Energy and Climate Change:
Heather Zichal
Tony Russell
Jake Levine
Joe Aldy

From the Office of Science and Technology Policy:
John Holdren
Steve Fetter
Shere Abbott

From the Council on Environmental Quality:
Nancy Sutley
Amy Salzman
Jess Maher

National Security Council:
Mike Froman
Ed Fendley

Communications:
Ben LaBolt

HT: David D.

NASA Global Warming Alarmist Endorses Book That Calls For Mass Genocide

Here we go again. We must save Gaia from the wicked humans. The only means is for mass genocide.

Praise be to Gaia! How merciful and kind she is!

Prominent NASA global warming alarmist Dr. James Hansen has endorsed an eco-fascist book that calls for cities to be razed to the ground, industrial civilization to be destroyed and genocidal population reduction measures to be implemented in the name of preventing climate change.

Hansen, who was back in the news today commenting on a NASA press release that claims the last decade was the warmest on record, said that Keith Farnish, author of a new book called Time's Up, is correct in calling for acts of sabotage and environmental terrorism in blowing up dams and demolishing cities in order to return the planet to the agrarian age.

Hansen is a key figure in the global warming movement, for it was his 1988 with testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore that really got the ball rolling for the elite in their mission to hijack the environmental movement and promote apocalyptic fears of climate change as a means of seizing absolute power over humanity.

Author Farnish "believes - as the Hon Sir Jonathon Porritt does - that mankind is a blot on the landscape and that breeding (or for that matter, existence) should be discouraged," writes James Delingpole.

"The only way to prevent global ecological collapse and thus ensure the survival of humanity is to rid the world of Industrial Civilization," writes Farnish, adding that "people will die in huge numbers when civilization collapses".

Farnish echoes similar talking points to those featured in White House science czar John Holdren's Ecoscience textbook, which called for a "planetary regime" to carry out forced abortions and mandatory sterilization procedures, as well as drugging the water supply, in an effort to cull the human surplus.

Farnish explains his desire to see rampant population reduction in the name of saving the planet.

"In short, the greatest immediate risk to the population living in the conditions created by Industrial Civilization is the population itself. Civilization has created the perfect conditions for a terrible tragedy on the kind of scale never seen before in the history of humanity. That is one reason for there to be fewer people," he writes.

And how is the collapse of industrial civilization to be achieved? By indiscriminate acts of sabotage and eco-terrorism.

"Unloading essentially means the removal of an existing burden: for instance, removing grazing domesticated animals, razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine. The process of ecological unloading is an accumulation of many of the things I have already explained in this chapter, along with an (almost certainly necessary) element of sabotage," writes Farnish.

Why don’t these people always start with themselves? It reminds me of the suicide bombers whose leaders refuse to do the dirty work themselves.

HT: David D.

Feminists blitz CBS over pro-life Super Bowl ad

From WND:

College football star Tim Tebow is under attack by pro-abortion feminist groups after CBS agreed to air his 30-second Super Bowl ad celebrating life.

The commercial, paid for by Christian group Focus on the Family, tells the story of his mother, Pam Tebow, and her 1987 pregnancy with a theme of "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life." The ad is scheduled to be aired on the Feb. 7 broadcast of the Super Bowl at Dolphin Stadium in South Florida.

Pam became sick during her mission trip to the Philippines, contracting amoebic dysentery. She took strong antibiotics to rescue her from her coma. Pam's doctors warned that her baby would be stillborn or seriously ill. They suggested she abort the baby, but Pam refused. She gave birth to Tebow, who would later win the 2007 Heisman Trophy and help his Florida team to two national championships.

Sounds like a great story — and one I’ve heard too many times: pre-born babies being diagnosed with Downs (or other conditions); the parents refuse to abort; and the baby is fine.

Here’s the kicker, though.

Now Tebow's ad is under attack by several pro-abortion groups.

Jehmu Greene, president of Women's Media Center, demanded that CBS refuse to run the ad.

"An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year - an event designed to bring Americans together regardless of background, faith, ideology or political affiliation," she said in a statement today.

Notice that instead of uniting behind life (wouldn’t that be a great thing to unite behind?), the feminist organizations divide — then they call Tebow the divider.

Several feminist groups are joining the effort to pressure CBS into pulling the commercial, including: the National Organization for Women, the Abortion Access Project, ACCESS/Women's Health Rights Coalition, , Advocates for Youth, AlterNet, By Any Media Necessary, California Council of Churches IMPACT, CAMI project, Choice USA, Civil Liberties and Public Policy, Equality Now, Feminist Majority Foundation and Feminist Press.

HT: David D.

ABC: Republicans Pass Watered-Down 'Purity Test'

From ABC:

The Republican Party steered clear of passing a so-called "purity test" proposed by a handful of conservative members of the Republican National Committee and instead passed a toothless watered-down resolution that "urges" Republican Party leadership to consider a candidate's record and statements and fidelity to the party platform before providing financial support or an endorsement.

In the wake of the special House race in upstate New York last November where the Republican Party candidate DeDe Scozzafava found her campaign derailed by conservatives, several RNC members proposed the idea of passing a resolution where GOP candidates would have to agree to eight out of 10 stated policy positions before being eligible for support from the RNC.

The proposal, initially drafted by Indiana national committeeman James Bopp, was met with strong resistance by state party chairs concerned about such a one-size-fits-all approach.  This week, RNC Chairman Michael Steele made clear that he, too, opposed the proposed resolution.

That sent members of the RNC scrambling to come up with an alternate proposal that could win the support of the full national committee. At a time when Republicans are feeling bullish about capitalizing on their victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts at the start of this midterm election year, nobody seemed interested in putting the intra-party rift on full display. 

HT: David D.

Obama Says Budget, Jobs Priority

From Thomas Sowell:

“How long will it be before the public gets tired of the little know-it-all sermonettes by Barack Obama - especially since nothing that he is doing is actually working?” asks Thomas Sowell, who also warns “to watch what Obama does and not what he says”. 

And here’s the perfect example of what Dr. Sowell warns us about. From the AP:

Obama Says Budget, Jobs Priority

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Saturday that trimming U.S. budget deficits is as important as creating jobs, his top domestic priority this year, to continue the economic recovery that appears under way.

The government reported Friday the economy grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the final three months of 2009. It was the second consecutive quarter of growth and the fastest rate in more than six years.

``A sign of progress,'' Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. ``But as we work to create jobs, it is critical that we rein in the budget deficits we've been accumulating for far too long.''

Hammered by Republicans for billions of dollars in spending that added to the deficit, Obama outlined steps he said would rein in spending. They include rules requiring that spending or tax cuts be offset by cuts to other programs or tax increases, a freeze on most discretionary spending and a presidentially appointed commission to recommend ways to reduce the deficit.

Obama said ``pay-as-you-go'' rules that were in place in the 1990s led to surpluses at the end of the decade. But after Congress eliminated the rules, Obama said the result was the $1.3 trillion deficit he faced upon taking office in January 2009.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has predicted a deficit of about the same size for the 2010 budget year.

HT: David D.

Schizoprism in D.C.

The Obama Administration is acting schizophrenic when it comes to spending.

• The Obama Administration has proposed more give aways: college loan subsidies, etc
• The Dems in Congress propose $100+ billion “stimulus” spending bill.
• No attempt to roll back or cancel any of the stimulus/TARP that has yet been spent.
• Now they say they are going to freeze spending for 3 years.

HT: Chris Edwards

"President Obama Proposed 3-Year Spending Freeze"

Obama says that he wants to freeze federal spending for three years.

This is a drop in the bucket of federal spending.

1. The portion of the budget that Obama wants to freeze is only 13% of overall spending. He’s not touching defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, food stamps, or any other entitlement program.
2. Each budget year stands on its own. He can say he wants to freeze spending for three years, but what happens this year doesn’t affect the next.
3. This 13% of the budget has had runaway spending for the last 10 years. This portion of the budget ($447 billion) has risen 71% over the last 10 years.

Bottom line: freezing 13% of the budget while the rest is running away, is (as we say in the navy) like pissing in the wind.

The only way for the federal government to fix our problems is by reining in spending. Given who’s in charge of the White House and the Congress, there’s zero chance of that happening. The Dems spend money like drunken sailors.

HT: Cato

Breaking News: Juvenile shooting suspect back in custody after pipe bomb found

The following is from the online edition of the Lewiston Tribune.

One of the two juveniles arrested in connection with the shooting of up to 20 vehicles on State Highway 8 last week has been taken back into custody after investigators found a pipe bomb at his residence during a search Thursday, according to the Latah County Sheriff's Office.

Deputies were executing a search warrant as part of the investigation into the Jan. 22 shootings, according to a news release this afternoon from Lt. Brannon Jordan. Officials evacuated the area around the home, and a bomb squad from Spokane responded and neutralized the device, according to Jordan.

Austin Blake Medlock and Austin James Rickert, both 14-year-old freshmen at Deary High School, allegedly used two .22-caliber rifles and a crossbow to shoot at the vehicles, according to court records. The news release does not specify which teen was taken back into custody, and a dispatcher at the sheriff's office said she was told not to release the suspect's name.

The teen arrested Thursday is now charged with felony unlawful possession of bombs or destructive devices in addition to the earlier charge of unlawfully discharging a firearm at a vehicle, according to the news release.

County Magistrate John Judge released Medlock and Rickert to their parents after a hearing Monday on the condition that neither leave the sight of one of their parents, that all guns be removed from their homes, that they not touch a firearm, that the parents take them to and from school, that they both wear electronic monitoring devices and that they agree to be searched at any time by authorities.

No one was injured in the shootings, but one bullet passed through the passenger compartment of one car, narrowly missing two girls. 

One Cartoonist's Idea of the State of the Union