29 January 2010
Life Critical Differences – Ideology Matters
"As tragic as the Haitian calamity is, it is merely symptomatic of a far deeper tragedy that's completely ignored, namely self-inflicted poverty. The reason why natural disasters take fewer lives in our country is because we have greater wealth. It's our wealth that permits us to build stronger homes and office buildings. When a natural disaster hits us, our wealth provides the emergency personnel, heavy machinery and medical services to reduce the death toll and suffering. Haitians cannot afford the life-saving tools that we Americans take for granted. President Barack Obama called the quake 'especially cruel and incomprehensible.' He would be closer to the truth if he had said that the Haitian political and economic climate that make Haitians helpless in the face of natural disasters are 'especially cruel and incomprehensible.'
"The biggest reason for Haiti being one of the world's poorest countries is its restrictions on economic liberty. ... Private property rights are vital to economic growth. ... Haiti's disaster demands immediate Western assistance, but it's only the Haitian people who can relieve themselves of the deeper tragedy of self-inflicted poverty."
--economist Walter E. Williams
(HT: Patriot Post, read the whole thing)
28 January 2010
The Unlikely Hero Turning the Other Cheek
After observing the fecklessness of the United Nations yet again and the lethargic response of the Obama administration (there’s the disgust part), she writes:
In Haiti, however, there has been one foreign nation that has conspicuously broken free of this paralysis and has had no difficulty in setting up emergency aid for the Haitian victims. That country is Israel. Within hours of the earthquake striking, the Israeli media was reporting that Israel was assembling a team of no fewer than 220 emergency aid personnel to fly to the stricken country. As this CNN report shows, the Israelis have set up a fully equipped field hospital in Port-au-Prince treating wounded and sick Haitian victims.That’s right, Israel, that hated evil capitalistic Jewish state that refuses to die though bombarded with missiles on nearly a daily basis. The nation which, lambasted if ever it raises a hand in self defense, is the target for annihilation for every Arab state in the world. If ever there were an example of 1 Peter 2:12, this is most certainly one.
Ms. Phillips, herself an Englishwoman, continues:
A further Israel Foreign Ministry bulletin states that so far 200 patients have been treated. It would appear that it is only Israel which has managed to establish such advanced assistance this quickly. One desperate American aid worker tells CNN:
I’ve been here since Thursday; no-one except the Israeli hospital has taken any of our patients.
Another remarks of the Israeli field hospital:
Of any American field hospital, there is apparently not yet any sign. The reporter observes that the Israelis have come from the other side of the world. Another aid worker says it makes them ashamed to be Americans.It’s like another world here compared to the other hospitals. They have imaging... my God, they have machines here, operating theatres, ventilators, monitoring, it’s just amazing.
Israel sent a team of 220 aid workers. Israel has a population of six million. The population of Britain is 60 million. I’d say that was a disproportionate Israeli response, wouldn’t you?
Disproportionate indeed! There’s the admiration part. Perhaps this is in part what God meant in Genesis 12:2-3?
27 January 2010
Another Story You Won’t Hear in the MSM
In February 2003, Dr. Louise Brinton, the National Cancer Institute's chief of the Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, served as chairperson at an NCI workshop in Bethesda, Md., to assess whether abortion was implicated as a breast cancer risk.
In the opinion of "over 100 of the world's leading experts," said the subsequent NCI report, including Dr. Brinton, the answer was no.
One expert disallowed from participating was Dr. Joel Brind, a biology and endocrinology professor who had co-authored a meta-analysis demonstrating an abortion/breast cancer (ABC) link.
Brind protested that the outcome was predetermined by "experts" handpicked by Dr. Brinton who either were not really experts, were dependent on the NCI or other government agencies for grants, or were pro-abortion extremists, such as two who had previously provided paid "expert" court testimony on behalf of abortionists.
Studies concluding there was not an ABC link were included in the workshop analysis; studies concluding there was were not.
At the time, 29 out of 38 studies conducted worldwide over 40 years showed an increased ABC risk, but the NCI workshop nevertheless concluded it was "well established" that "induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk."
Brind went on to write a minority report NCI alludes to on its website without publishing or listing its author and did not even mention in its workshop summary report.
Life went on, except for post-abortive women inflicted with breast cancer anyway.Yes, folks, we have another coverup by the scientific community, but this time the consequences are much more disastrous on a personal human level. One could call this Abortiongate if one were so inclined (I’m not particularly) because the similarities to the so-called Climategate and other such scandals is striking. Data contrary to the desired outcome are ignored and buried, while loudly touting the falsified picture as the truth. So how do we know about this? The story continues:
But six years later something happened. Dr. Brinton either flipped her lid, flipped ideologies, restudied the evidence and decided to recant, or couldn't sleep at night – and she began righting her wrong.You can read the original for all the resulting machinations. The next critical question to ask is Why? Why this coverup if women’s health, indeed, their very lives, are at stake? Very succinctly put:
In April 2009, Brinton co-authored a research paper published in the prestigious journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, which concluded that the risk of a particularly deadly form of breast cancer that attacks women under 40 raises 40 percent if a woman has had an abortion.
Curiously, the paper included as corroboration two studies Brinton's 2003 NCI "experts" had rejected. More curiously, it turns out Brinton co-authored one of those two studies.
For nine months, that little bombshell of a disaster for pro-abortion ideology was published without the NCI acknowledging it or changing its stance.
Then this month, Brind spotted and wrote about Brinton's concession and NCI's hypocrisy.
One can only hope someone will have the guts and the money to do just that. In the meantime, share this information with every young woman you know.
Pro-aborts are understandably mum about Brinton's concession. Confirmation of the ABC link would eviscerate public acceptance and participation in abortion. Exposure of a long-term cover-up would eviscerate the savings accounts of abortionists and the abortion industry following lawsuit losses of a magnitude as great as or greater than the class-action lawsuits against tobacco companies.
Someone Call 911 Before These People Hurt Themselves
Today, it seems that legions of people – growing legions – are falling victims to ideas and beliefs that on the face of it are patently false…things that are so clearly and obviously nuts that you really have to wonder what deep, mighty engine of emotional need could possibly drive a brain so deep into a hole. Seriously now, there are millions and millions of people on this planet who will torture logic and reason to mind-bending extremes in order to believe monumentally ridiculous “theories”… theories drawn from an emotional need so warped and debased that you are catapulted beyond anger and disbelief directly into pathos and the desire to call 911 before these people hurt themselves.
As the days progress and the sea level remains the same and polar bears cavort on the ice floes in increasing numbers, the major proponents of globaloney warming/climate change increasingly fall into this category of addle-patted induhviduals for whom a 911 call would, indeed, be appropriate. And repeatedly their impenetrable denial of reality demonstrates the truth of Proverbs 29:9,
If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest.

EXHIBIT A
Antarctic Ice Melt at Lowest Levels in Satellite Era
The ice melt across during the Antarctic summer (October-January) of 2008-2009 was the lowest ever recorded in the satellite history.
Such was the finding reported by Marco Tedesco and Andrew Monaghan in the journal Geophysical Research Letters:
A 30-year minimum Antarctic snowmelt record occurred during austral summer 2008–2009 according to spaceborne microwave observations for 1980–2009. Strong positive phases of both the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM) were recorded during the months leading up to and including the 2008–2009 melt season.
Tedesco M., and A. J. Monaghan, 2009. An updated Antarctic melt record through 2009 and its linkages to high-latitude and tropical climate variability. Geophysical Research Letters , 36, L18502, doi:10.1029/2009GL039186
Translation: No, Virginia, the polar ice caps are not going to flood the planet and kill us all.
EXHIBIT B
There we read:
"Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years...
"...not much is happening with global warming at the moment. The Earth's average temperatures have stopped climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year."
Now, Der Speigel is not exactly known for being a right-wing conspiracy publication, so it would appear that at least enough scientists are either coming to their senses and/or being honest with the data that this major media outlet (note: not from USA!) is honest enough to report on it.
Translation: Yes, Virginia, James Hansen was wrong. Al Gore was wrong. (Shocking, I know.) It means the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change was wrong. It means the climate models on which the entire theory of Globaloney Warming was based were wrong. Above all? It means the science is not settled. There is no consensus.
EXHIBIT C
A Rational Response to Rising Sea Levels, If They Occur

Another grossly inaccurate claim which totally ignores our adaptive response involves sea level rise. Al Gore likes to show maps of what coastal areas look like presently, and what they would look like assuming a multi-meter sea level rise. A dramatic section of Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth showed some before and afters of coastal locations under Gore’s scenario of a 20 foot sea level rise that would happen “[i]f Greenland melted or broke up and slipped into the sea—or half of Greenland and half of Antarctica melted or broke up and slipped into the sea.” For a dose of reality, a recent paper published in Geophysical Research Letters pegged the current rate of sea level rise contributed by Antarctica and Greenland combined at 6 inches/century. How inconvenient.
No matter what, is that Gore’s pictures will never represent reality for the simple reason that we won’t let them. Do you really think that the powers that be will let a large portions of Manhattan Island sink beneath the waves like Gore depicts? Of course not. Instead, appropriate responses will take place to protect the high-priced development there. This will happen not only in Manhattan, but in most places where we have already invested a lot of time, effort, and money.
~~~
References:
Titus, J. G., et al., 2009. State and local governments plan for development of most land vulnerable to rising sea level along the US Atlantic coast. Environmental Research Letters, 4, 044008, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/044008, http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/4/4/044008/erl9_4_044008.pdf?request-id=058698c2-eac8-4b9f-add9-00653751c40a.
Velicogna, I., 2009. Increasing rates of ice mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets revealed by GRACE. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L19503, doi:10.1029/2009GL040222.
In other words, all the dramatic and emotional video nightmares of seas rushing in like tsunamis and drowning us all in a violent cataclysm are just so much emotional manipulation with no basis in reality even if the planet were warming more than usual. Most notably, many of the dire predictions of the Climate Changers are based on the assumption of stupidity and unresponsiveness of the appropriate community to actual changes should they occur. If you see a fist heading for your face, you duck. They assume you’ll lean into it!
The key here is not overreacting and trying to correct a situation that may never arise.
EXHIBIT D
Belief in Climate Change Officially Declared a Religion in the UK
Oddly enough, this was based on a case initiated by a Globaloney Warmer by the name of Mr. Nicholson, who believed he had been fired for…wait for it…his environmental beliefs! Quoting the report from the aforementioned link explains:
"Mr. Nicholson claims, for example, that other executives stymied his attempts to devise a carbon-management system for the firm by failing to give him the necessary data. He also accused Rupert Dickinson, the firm’s chief executive, of ‘contempt’ for his green views. Mr. Dickinson, for example, made an employee fly from London to Ireland to bring him a BlackBerry that he had left behind.
"The rules on which Mr. Nicholson’s case is built, namely the Equality and Employment (Religion or Belief) Regulations, were introduced in 2003 to protect employees from being sacked on the grounds of their religion.
“They ban ‘conduct which has the purpose or effect of creating an... offensive environment’ for the employee and have since been used in many high-profile employment-tribunal cases...
"At an earlier hearing on October 7th, Mr. Justice Burton had asserted that ‘if a person can establish that he holds a philosophical belief which is based on science as opposed, for example, to religion, then there is no reason to disqualify it from protection.’ He provided a five-pronged test to shore up the ruling: the belief must be genuinely held; it must be held for a long period of time; it must relate to something of grave importance to humanity; it must reach a certain level of cogency and seriousness; and it must not trample on existing ideas of human rights. By way of example, he said belief in the supremacy of the Jedi knights of ‘Star Wars’ fame would be excluded, but he conceded that allegiance to the doctrines of Marxism or communism might not."
EXHIBIT E
Record Snowfalls: Climate Fails to Get Word on Globaloney Warming

EXHIBIT F
Warming in Australia Due to Fudge Factor, Not Temperature
There is a city on the northern coast of Australia named Darwin, and data from five temperature recording stations from 1880 to the present demonstrate a tight fit. It was reported to be a womping 1.2 degree C increase per century since about 1940 (red line on graph). However, further digging shows that the raw data shows a 0.7 degree C cooling trend per century. Not to be confused by this fact, the data was helpfully “adjusted” by factors whose magnitude is shown on the black line to achieve the “proper” increase in temperature.

This post goes on to show data from 16 other stations across the entire country of Australia to determine whether or not Darwin was an anomaly. As you might imagine if you are thinking critically, the data do not support an increasing temperature trend. Rather inconvenient of the Aussies, I’d say.
EXHIBIT G
Medieval Warm Period Prior to Technology Warmer than Today
It’s clear that the world was warmer during medieval times. Marked on the map below are study after study (all peer-reviewed) from all around the world with results of temperatures from the medieval time compared to today. These use ice cores, stalagmites, sediments, and isotopes. They agree with 6,144 boreholes around the world which found that temperatures were about 0.5°C warmer world wide.
If globaloney warming were true and anthropogenic in nature due to man’s technology, then this increase prior to the industrial revolution is inexplicable by and contrary to globaloney warming doctrine. Also in the link is a discussion of how the data available has been dishonestly dealt with.
Translation: No, Virginia, globaloney warming is not even remotely associated with man’s activities.
EXHIBIT H
SHOCKING DISCOVERY: Global Temperatures are linked to…US POSTAL RATES!
Yes, as the graph below so vividly illustrates, the true culprit of Globaloney Warming has been finally found, and it’s not a pretty story!

The story in the above link is a remarkably good piece of satire and highly recommended for further reading.
For the benefit of any Innumerati reading this, what is going on is an error usually covered in Statistics 101. Repeat after me: “correlation does not mean causation!” So, even if the hockey stick graph were true and CO2 levels correlated to alleged temperature rise, that DOES NOT PROVE CO2 IS THE CAUSE OF THE ALLEGED TEMPERATURE RISE! There, did I say it loud enough? For more links related to this story, see here.
EXHIBIT I
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or listening to the MSM only, you know what this is about. The above link is only one of a multitude covering this story.
The emails reveal blatant efforts by the pro-globaloney warming scientists to falsify temperature data by "hiding the decline" in global temperatures, to apply pressure to scientific journals to exclude any studies that cast doubt upon the alleged hypothesis of global warming, and to illegally delete information requested under the Freedom of Information Act. The Washington Times, in an editorial, states it bluntly:
The content of these e-mails raises extremely serious questions that could end the academic careers of many prominent professors. Academics who have purposely hidden data, destroyed information and doctored their results have committed scientific fraud. We can only hope respected academic institutions such as Pennsylvania State University, the University of Arizona and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst conduct proper investigative inquiries. Most important, however, these revelations of fudged science should have a cooling effect on global-warming hysteria and the panicked policies that are being pushed forward to address the unproven theory.


Surprisingly, even the mainstream media, filled with Globaloney Warming sympathizers and Goracles, eventually caught on to the fact that they couldn’t ignore this huge story, albeit, they tried to spin it into insignificance. Here's coverage from The Washington Post, the BBC (which apparently sat on the story for a month), and even (begrudgingly we're sure) The New York Times. Here's a link to a collection of mostly predictable (“Ignore the man behind the curtain! We are the Great Oz!”) responses from induhviduals of the Radical Green Agenda.
Of course, chief among those induhviduals is the Goreacle himself, who, not once, not twice, but three times in an interview with Slate, claimed that the hacked climate emails were more than ten years old, and as such not of particular interest to anyone currently following the debate. Ignoring the fact that there's been no global warming for the last ten years, Mr. Gore is wrong in his most basic claim (surprise!...?): The most recent of the emails was sent November 12th of 2009. Andrew Bolt highlights some other important emails that fall within the ten year window:
...The emails which have Tom Wigley seeming (to me) to choke on the deceit are all from this year. Phil Jones’ infamous email urging other Climategate scientists to delete emails is from last year.
How closely did Gore read these emails? Did he actually read any at all? Was he lying or just terribly mistaken? What else has he got wrong?
Typical liberal strategy: when caught with your hand in the cookie jar, deny it, ignore it, demonize those who found you out, and downplay its significance when they persist. Actually, what it really reveals aside from the blatant dishonesty and corruption in the whole agenda driven process is the cognitive dissonance required by these globaloney warming proponents. The change from “globaloney warming” to “climate change” is just one sign of their efforts to deal with the audacity of the climate’s failure to support their theory. They thus construct for themselves an asylum of ignorance in which data is irrelevant and their reality must conform to their beliefs. Too bad reality failed to get the memo.
EXHIBIT J
Arctic Ice Sheet Expanding, Not Contracting per the Goreacle
In Exhibit A above, we noted that the Antarctic ice was not melting away at the South Pole. Now we have a report that up at the North Pole, Santa’s activities have not been melting the ice up there either. In fact, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed globaloney warming activists can not dispute this.
Oopsie!
EXHIBIT K
German Scientists Show the Globaloney Warming Theory Runs Afoul of the Laws of Thermodynamics
Two German scientists, in a paper re-edited and republished earlier in 2009, have thoroughly debunked the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming with one of the basic foundations of physical chemistry. John O'Sullivan in the above link has an explanation in plain English for those who aren’t chemists and/or who went to public school.
In a recently revised and re-published paper, Dr Gerlich debunks AGW and shows that the IPCC “consensus” atmospheric physics model tying CO2 to global warming is not only unverifiable, but actually violates basic laws of physics, i.e. the First and Second Law of Thermodynamics. The latest version of this momentous scientific paper appears in the March 2009 edition of the International Journal of Modern Physics.
The central claims of Dr. Gerlich and his colleague, Dr. Ralf Tscheuschner, include, but are not limited to:
1) The mechanism of warming in an actual greenhouse is different than the mechanism of warming in the atmosphere, therefore it is not a “greenhouse” effect and should be called something else.
2) The climate models that predict catastrophic global warming also result in a net heat flow from atmospheric greenhouse gasses to the warmer ground, which is in violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
Essentially, any machine which transfers heat from a low temperature reservoir to a high temperature reservoir without external work applied cannot exist. If it did it would be a “perpetual motion machine” – the realm of pure sci-fi.
If you are interested, you can read the entire paper online at this link.
EXHIBIT L
Globaloney warming alleged scientists are fond of denying that the sun has anything to do with temperature fluctuations on planet earth. Nicola Scafetta is an atmospheric scientist with Duke University’s highly regarded Department of Physics who disagrees, and in a recent article in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, he notes (emphases added):
Estimating the solar contribution to global mean air surface temperature change is fundamental for evaluating the anthropogenic contribution to climate change. This is regarded as one of the most important issues of our time. While some theoretical climate model studies indicate that the solar variability has little effect on climate (these studies estimate that less than 10% of the global warming observed since 1900 is due to the sun), several empirical studies suggest that large climatic variations are well synchronized with solar variations and, therefore, climate is quite sensitive to solar changes.”
Please note the distinction between “theoretical” and “empirical.” Theoretical translates into computer models built upon assumptions that may or may not be correct. Those models are only as good as the predictions they allow you to make. To date, the predictions of said models have been soundly debunked by the actual, i.e., empirical, data.
Translation: the models don’t work and are so much garbage.
~~~
Reference:
Scafetta, N. 2009. Empirical analysis of the solar contribution to global mean air surface temperature change. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 71, 1916–1923.
EXHIBIT M
Brutally Cold Weather for Global Winter

The January 14th, 2010, GreenWatchAmerica newsletter notes:
One of the tricks of the Radical Green Agenda when it comes to global warming has been to stress the issue in the summer, when the public would be more receptive (and fearful) of warnings of even hotter temperatures. This tactic has a long tradition. In fact, when NASA scientist and Global Warming advocate James Hansen first presented his dire global warming predictions, he did it in the middle of June, on the hottest day of the year. In the winter, the movement tends to bite its tongue, since the promise of warmer temperatures (and lower heating bills) is hardly frightening when it's 12 degrees outside.
Nevertheless, some members of the Radical Green Agenda are trying to use this cold-spell as a "lesson" about Climate Change. When asked how scientists might justify this bitterly cold winter with the theory of Global Warming, David Goldston, the Director of Government Affairs at the National Resources Defense Council said the following:
“I mean, I don’t think the big -- the biggest problem in the Senate at this point is people who don’t think that climate change is real, so I mean, I think, if the cold winter gives us another chance to explain that weather and climate aren’t the same thing, that’s good from an educational point of view.”
No, Mr. Goldston, the big problem is that 22 years James Hansen sat down before congress with charts showing that because of human activity temperatures were going to dramatically rise and continue to rise for the foreseeable future. For ten years or so, those predictions looked pretty good. Then, suddenly, they stopped looking good. Temperatures stopped rising. So, did you go back and re-examine your theory? No, instead you dumbed it down, rebranded it climate change, and said that any weather condition (and indeed, basically any condition) out of the ordinary could be attributed to this theory.
The truth is that most experts aren't sure what this cold winter means in terms of long term trends. However, a few experts have settled on a rather terrifying idea:
The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.
Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in summer by 2013.
…
The scientists’ predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models, which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise. They say that their research shows that much of the warming was caused by oceanic cycles when they were in a ‘warm mode’ as opposed to the present ‘cold mode’.
This challenge to the widespread view that the planet is on the brink of an irreversible catastrophe is all the greater because the scientists could never be described as global warming ‘deniers’ or sceptics.
Read the whole article by clicking this link. We must say, given the choice between warming and an ice age, we'll take a warmer earth every time.
EXHIBIT N
Caught once again with their hands in the cookie jar, the IPCC is forced to admit their “mistake,” but only as a last resort when more honest reporting has been going viral on the internet (one wonders whether or not Al Gore is having second thoughts about having created the internet!). Translation: “Poorly substantiated” really means wishful assertion based on willful ignorance in accordance with trying to force reality to be what one “knows” it to be.
~~~


~~~
20 January 2010
Stupidity on Display - The Official Ft. Hood Report
We've carried two pieces here at Blackfive on the DoD report on the terrorist attack at Ft. Hood: One by McQ and one by Crush (I so want to write that as Crash...). Meaning no disrespect to them, this morning brought to my eye the best analysis of that report I've seen.
Couldn't agree more!
What's more, I think you will agree that these 40 words (roughly) best sum up that report and those who issued it.
That is all.
LW





