This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Friday December 4 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
50 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Haven't noticed any bar-charts touting your Web traffic lately.
Not quite so stellar when quarterly layoffs aren't imminent?
C'mon ... give us the full disclosure. Or are you afraid of losing advertisers?
The $50 Billion New Socialist Media (AIM Report) McClatchy’s “Ja Comrade” wet dream to this type of press.
Robert W. McChesney, the socialist professor whose Free Press organization is leading the charge for the $50 billion transformation of the media, hosts a one-sided, tax-supported radio program sponsored by the University of Illinois that could serve as a model for the "New Public Media" the group has envisioned for America.
As Accuracy in Media was the first to disclose, McChesney recently introduced Obama's anti-American pastor Jeremiah Wright at a celebration of the socialist publication Monthly Review. Wright praised Marxism and called America "land of the greed and home of the slave."
As AIM has documented, McChesney's organization, Free Press, has led the campaign for what it calls "New Public Media."
McChesney's "Media Matters" show on WILL radio AM 580 in Urbana, Illinois, may be the model for what Free Press has in mind.
The Sunday show is an examination of politics and media issues from a hard-left perspective and serves as a personal propaganda vehicle for McChesney's favorite political causes and candidates.
In response to an inquiry from Accuracy in Media, McChesney couldn't name one conservative who has been on his show since it was launched in 2002.
Mark Leonard, general manager of WILL, said, "It doesn't concern me," when asked about the complete lack of conservative guests.
"What we celebrate is a diversity of points of view," he said, although he couldn't name one conservative on the air on WILL.
He said he assumes that conservatives sometimes call into the "Media Matters" program, and that was good enough for him.
So, what works best for you? Socialism, Communism or Fascism?
WSJ Freelancer Plagiarized Column, Attributed Stolen Quotes To Fake People (The Business Insider)
The Journal has a Jayson Blair moment. The Wall Street Journal is having a Jayson Blair moment.
The paper just announced that it is pulling a Nov. 10 "New Global Indian" column because the freelancer who wrote it, Mona Sarika, plagiarized several sources and attributed stolen quotes to made-up names.
Mona's bio on her HUFFINGTON POST BLOGGER PROFILE describes her as "a graduate student and freelance writer who hails from India and currently lives in New York City."
Here's the announcement: Nov. 10"New Global Indian" online column by New York City freelance writer Mona Sarika has been found to contain information that was plagiarized from several publications, including the Washington Post, Little India, India Today and San Francisco magazine.
In the column, "Homeward Bound," about H-1B visa holders returning to India, Ms. Sarika also re-used direct quotes from other publications, without attribution, and changed the original speakers' names to individuals who appear to be fabricated.
The column is the only work by Ms. Sarika to be published by the Journal, and it has been removed from the Journal's Web sites.
T Washington Times announces new structure, layoffs (The Washington Times)
Acting Publisher Jonathan Slevin on Wednesday announced plans for a "new" Washington Times that will focus more narrowly on its core areas of coverage while operating with a deeply reduced work force.
"We will focus on our strengths -- exclusives, in-depth reporting, politics, enterprise stories, geostrategic and national news, plus cultural reporting based on traditional values,"
Mr. Slevin said at a meeting of the newspaper's editorial and support staff who were warned to expect "significant staff reductions" within 60 days.
All employees were handed letters advising them that at least 40 percent of the workforce will be laid off in the coming weeks. The cuts are necessary for the newspaper "to keep pace with the dynamically changing economics of the news business," Mr. Slevin said.
Mr. Slevin, who also serves as acting president of The Washington Times, also said the paper would shift from its current subscription-based model to a controlled circulation model where newspapers will be distributed free of charge in key locations aimed at Washington policy- and opinion-makers.
Home delivery will continue to be available at a premium price, he said. Current subscribers will be offered the electronic edition, the national weekly edition or other options.
"The new Washington Times will continue to focus on fearless reporting, crisp editorials and traditional American values," Mr. Slevin said.
"We are a 21st-century media company, refocusing as a provider of insight in the nation's capital. We are reshaping operations to keep pace with the news business."
The mission of The Times, Mr. Slevin told employees, is "to provide an independent, alternative voice," delivered on the multiple platforms of the contemporary press, including digital, print and broadcast formats.
Like many news organizations, The Times is facing a challenging financial scenario.
The crappiest NYTimes column on Obamacare just got crappier; (Michelle Malkin)
Today, I did something that Pulitzer Prize-winning NYTimes columnist Nick Kristof apparently didn’t do:
I talked to a spokesman at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon.
I called them up after OHSU’s Dr. Johnny Delashaw left a comment about Kristof’s piece spotlighting the horrible plight of John Brodniak, an Oregon man with a neurological condition that he says no one would treat.
Kristof used Brodniak’s plight to argue for universal health care, decry Brodniak’s deadly lack of insurance (even though he got Medicaid coverage in August), and lambaste doctors for refusing to treat Brodniak due to low reimbursements.
Well, OHSU confirmed for me two things:
1) OHSU is a safety-net hospital not far from where Brodniak lives.
The hospital accepts all Medicaid patients and would not turn Brodniak away.
Okay, are you ready for Number 2?
2) Brodniak is a patient at OHSU — and has been a patient there for the past three weeks.
In other words, at the time Kristof’s article was published this past Sunday, Brodniak was already being treated and cared for by some of the best neurologists in the country!
The spokesman told me that the Brodniaks were willing to confirm “reluctantly” for me that he has been a patient there for nearly a month, but they refuse to talk to me directly.
The spokesman also told me that OHSU will not make its doctors available for further comment on the matter.
Kristof’s readers have been raising money to pay for the Brodniaks to get him treated. But Brodniak is covered. He doesn’t have to pay a dime.
Will Kristof tell his readers the rest of the “horror story?” Or isn’t the whole truth fit to print in the Fishwrap of Record?
A reminder of the hysterical title of Kristof’s piece:
“Are We Going To Let John Die?”
Er, why don’t you pose that question to the doctors who have been treating John Brodniak the past three weeks and tell your readers to stop bashing Joe Lieberman for opposing the Demcare public option?
Journalistic prose that tugs at the heartstrings and serves the proletariat can not be hindered by mere facts!
Could things get any worse for CNN? Apparently, the answer is 'yes.'
The pioneering and once dominant leader in cable news has been hemorrhaging viewers for some time and earlier this year suffered the indignity of slipping to last place among cable news networks, behind even its sister network Headline News.
Now come the November Nielsen ratings showing that the surprise departure of Lou Dobbs has cost the network even more viewers.
After Dobbs announced his resignation on air on Wednesday November 11, CNN suffered a 25% decline among all viewers in Dobbs' 7pm time slot, and a 26% decline among adults 25-54.
Meanwhile - surprise, surprise - CNN's competition in the 7pm slot at FOX News, The FOX Report with Shephard Smith, scored its highest rated month of the year in November with more than 2.1 million total viewers and just over 500,000 viewers in the A25-54 demo.
CNN's fall after Dobbs' departure also allowed MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews to eke its way into second place 7 pm slot in November with 672,000 total viewers and 184,000 viewers among Adults 25-54.
Alternate working headline: Biggest Loser beats Biggest Loser
Here's a look at the numbers. If you combine the entire 8 pm hour when Obama spoke, the four networks showing him and a show afterward (except for CBS) within the hour combined for 30.2 million viewers.
Based on Obama fatigue and his numbers for primetime speeches this year, however, you can figure perhaps up to a third of the audience tuned in after his self-serving speech.
Even if you can say he had that entire 30.2 million, that's still over 10 million fewer viewers than the economic recovery speech of March 24.
Consider "Biggest Loser" and Obama on NBC at 8 drew 8.1 million viewers. In the 9 pm hour, BL drew 9.7 and then 10.2 in the 10 pm slot, which just happens to also beat Jay Leno's average in that timeslot for NBC. So BL increased viewership in the two hours after Obama.
White House Blocks Testimony on Party Crashers (New York Times)
But this is the most open and transparent administration ever?
The White House on Wednesday invoked the separation of powers to keep Desiree Rogers, President Obama’s social secretary, from testifying on Capitol Hill about how a couple of aspiring reality television show celebrities crashed a state dinner for the prime minister of India last week.
And the couple will not testify, either, according to a statement released late Wednesday by a public relations firm.
But if a Republican administration were to do this, the media would be unrelenting in bashing it for it’s secretiveness.
Mickey Rooney turned away at White House Party (Washington Times)
Would-be reality TV stars can crash the White House. But real stars -- the old-fashioned kind? Forget about it.
G2 has learned that entertainment legend Mickey Rooney, who has met every previous president since FDR, tried to crash the White House by showing up without an appointment while he was in town early last month.
Dennis Miller on Crashergate Couple: At Least Obama Didn’t Bow to Them (Video) (GatewayPundit)
Dennis Miller praises Barack Obama on The O’Reilly Factor...For not bowing to the Crashergate couple:
Dennis Miller: “I want them to dispose her and get her to admit she’s 44 under oath...I’m just proud of our president when they showed him, it was nice to finally see him not bow to somebody, you know.”
Even people in the lamestream media are going to have to start asking him questions. (So instead of going green...gore went YELLOW?)
Berlingske regret to announce that Al Gore has canceled his event. De over 3.000 læsere, der har købt billet, får pengene retur. The more than 3,000 readers who bought a ticket, get money back.
The group says Gore canceled the lecture Thursday, citing unforeseen changes in his schedule.
Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider says the decision was made because of "all the events going on with the summit." Dec. 16 is a key date for the meeting because that's when the ministerial segment starts.
Chief editor Lisbeth Knudsen says it's a "great disappointment" that Gore canceled and that all tickets will be refunded.
Media Ignore Al Gore’s Financial Ties to Global Warming (News Busters)
As NewsBusters reported here, here, and here, there are huge dollars to be made from global warming alarmism.
However, conceivably no one is better positioned to financially benefit from this scam than Dr. Global Warming himself, former Vice President Al Gore, a fact that the media will surely not share with Americans any time soon.
Yet, if America’s press would take some time out of their busy schedules covering the earth-shattering details surrounding Anna Nicole Smith’s demise, they might find a deliciously inconvenient truth about the soon-to-be-Dr. Gore that is significantly more fascinating and diabolical than anything likely to emerge from that courtroom in Broward County, Florida.
As reported by Dan Riehl (emphasis mine throughout):
Former Vice President Al Gore has built a Green money-making machine capable of eventually generating billions of dollars for investors, including himself, but he set it up so that the average Joe can't afford to play on Gore's terms.
And the US portion is headed up by a former Gore staffer and fund raiser who previously ran afoul of both the FEC and the DOJ, before Janet Reno jumped in and shut down an investigation during the Clinton years.
Think Katie, Charlie, or Brian will be all over this tonight?
Regardless, that was just the tip of the questionably melting iceberg as reported by Bill Hobbs in Nashville, Tennessee:
[H]ow Gore buys his "carbon offsets," as revealed by The Tennessean raises serious questions.
According to the newspaper's report, Gore buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management:
Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets.
The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe...
‘Will Algore give back the multi millions he’s scammed?” Well if things pan out he will spend a lot on legal fees and PR firms.
Dutch: Gore Wrong on Snows of Kilimanjaro (Pajamas MEdia)
Newspapers and news sites in the Netherlands today extensively broke the news of the findings of a research team led by Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damste — a leading molecular paleontologist at Utrecht University and winner of the prestigious Spinoza Prize — about the melting icecap of the Kilimanjaro, the African mountain that became a symbol of anthropogenic global warming.
Professor Sinninghe Damste’s research, as discussed on the site of the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (DOSR) — a governmental body — shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago.
The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of “a natural process of dry and wet periods.”
The present melting is not the result of “environmental damage caused by man.”...
Obama’s Socialist Science Czar Grilled at Global Warming Hearing (Video) (GatewayPundit)
GOP Reps Slam Science Czar at Global Warming Hearings– Obama’s socialist Science Czar John Holdren, who once said that forced abortions were needed to save the planet, is linked to the Climategate Scandal.
Ranking Member Rep. Sensenbrenner grilled Science Czar Dr. Holdren at the Global Warming hearings today: Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI) was brilliant in grilling Holdren on global warming junk science.
During the hearing Holdren tried to define what the meaning of “trick” is.
The AP reported: House Republicans pointed to controversial e-mails leaked from climate scientists and said it was evidence of corruption.
Top administration scientists looking at the same thing found no such sign, saying it doesn’t change the fact that the world is warming.
The e-mails from a British university’s climate center were obtained by computer hackers and posted online about two weeks ago. Climate change skeptics contend the messages reveal that researchers manipulated and suppressed data and stifled dissent, and conservative bloggers are dubbing it “Climategate.”
In the first Capitol Hill airing of the issue, House Republicans Wednesday read excerpts from at least eight of the e-mails, saying they showed the world needs to re-examine experts’ claims that the science on warming is settled.
One e-mail from 2003 was by John Holdren, then of Harvard University and now the president’s science adviser.
The exploding controversy led Phil Jones to step aside as head of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, the source of the e-mail exchanges.
The university is investigating the matter. Penn State University also is looking into e-mails by its own researcher, Michael Mann.
House Republicans asked for a separate hearing or investigation into the issue, but were rebuffed by Democrats.
“These e-mails show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy that was inspired by ideology, condescension and profit,” said U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.
Among the messages that Sensenbrenner read was one from Jones, the East Anglia scientist, in which he wrote about a “trick of adding in the real temps” in an exchange about long-term climate trends.
Holdren responded that the word “trick” did not mean manipulation of data, but about a “clever way” to tackle a problem.
Another Jones’ e-mail read, “I would like to see the climate change happen so the science could be proved right.”
Climategate: Mann Throws Jones Under the Bus (GatewayPundit)
Dr. Michael Mann co-authored the famous graph of temperature trends dubbed the “hockey stick graph.”
Last week Mann was implicated in the global warming email and document conspiracy.
Mann’s controversial work has been challenged in the past. Yesterday Dr. Mann threw fellow junk scientist Phil Jones under the bus.
The Telegraph reported: Prof Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has been accused of manipulating climate change data following thousands of leaked documents that suggested academics delete sensitive emails to evade Freedom of Information requests from climate change sceptics.
Prof Jones, who has denied altering figures, has since said he would stand down from his post while an independent review is carried out.
One of the scientists to whom the emails were addressed, Professor Michael Mann, the Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University has moved to distance himself from some of the comments in the emails that suggest scientists did not want the IPCC, the UN body charged with monitoring climate change, to consider studies that challenged the view global warming was genuine and man-made.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight, Prof Mann said: “I can’t put myself in the mind of the person who wrote that email and sent it. I in no way endorse what was in that email.”
Prof Mann also said he could not “justify” a request from Prof Jones that he should delete some of his own emails to prevent them from being seen by outsiders.
As the MRC’s Business and Media Institute reported on Wednesday, in the twelve days since emails were released showing climate scientists manipulating global warming data, many in the media have been stunningly silent.
The evening network newscasts on ABC, CBS, NBC have failed to make any mention of the scandal going on day thirteen since the story broke.
On NBC’s Nightly News on Wednesday, anchor Brian Williams failed to cover the climate controversy, but did manage to find the time to congratulate himself on his fifth anniversary of taking over the broadcast from Tom Brokaw.
As NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard reported on Wednesday, even faux news anchor Jon Stewart referenced ClimateGate on The Daily Show.
President Obama's jobs summit is a great feast of folly (New York Daily News)
Politicians constantly need to create the impression that they're actually getting paid to do something.
President Obama is no different. Today, the White House will host a Jobs Summit featuring 100-plus business leaders, union chiefs, academics, mayors and representatives of nonprofit groups.
Obama's goal is to show he's serious about taking action on the backsliding economy and to convince the electorate that public activity means real policy action.
I'll have to crash Obama's party, because summits are giant publicity stunts where loads of taxpayer money is spent on fancy backdrops, flower arrangements and so much glad-handing and back-slapping that the participants leave with calluses and whiplash.
The Obama administration messed up when it decided to back the aspiring Chavezian thug Zelaya in Honduras.
Zelaya had attempted to illegally change the constitution to remain in power. For this he was legally ousted from office.
Everyone who spent more than five minutes looking into this topic understood that the people who ousted Zelaya, while not perfect, were certainly on the side of the angels on this one.
Everyone, that is, except Obama and his State Department.
A lobbyist by any other name: SEIU and the Obama White House (Big Goverment) So much for having the most transparent administration eveh
Successfully demonizing Washington insiders on the campaign trail, President Obama needed to find a way to meet with lobbyists without appearing hypocritical.
The administration’s advice to lobbyists? De-register.
For an administration that promised to renounce interest groups, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) certainly has the president’s ear and is sure to be a major player in the December jobs summit.
In 2008, SEIU donated nearly $28 million to the Obama campaign setting the stage for SEIU President Andy Stern to become the White House’s most frequent visitor in 2009, according to White House visitor logs.
Anna Burger, Treasure of the SEIU and Chairwoman of their Change to Win campaign was even appointed to Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board earlier this year and will represent SEIU at the December jobs summit held by the White House.
Dem’s NEW Jobs Plan will Only Cost America $300 Billion (GatewayPundit)
Considering their last failed jobs plan cost $787 billion consider this a bargain.
Democrats tripled the national deficit in less than one year after their last failed stimulus.
They’ve increased the national debt to $12 Trillion. And they’ve nearly doubled the unemployment rate since the Bush years.
Now they want to do it all over again. The Hill reported:
The cost of a new jobs bill Democrats hope to move early next year runs to nearly $300 billion when major proposals under serious consideration are added up.
Lawmakers are calling for extending aid to the unemployed, infrastructure spending, a hiring tax credit and increased small business loans.
A number of the jobs proposals backed by Democrats make up a $230 billion package proposed by Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com, who made a presentation to Senate Democrats Wednesday.
The provisions supported by Zandi along with new spending on infrastructure, a favored approach of top House Democrats, would cost between $291 billion and $299 billion, according to estimates by lawmakers and economists.
Aides cautioned that Democratic leaders in both chambers are just beginning to consider what will go into the bill, and that estimates based on standalone bills may not mesh with the final jobs legislation.
Last week Nancy Pelosi confessed that the the reason Americans are mad about their record spending is that “they’re not getting anything for it.”
But, that won’t stop them from repeating the whole disaster again.
The Untold Story - Emergency Unemployment Compensation Claims Surge By 265k In One Week (Zero Hedge)
Even as CNBC, which seems to be unaware it is now under new ownership and can stop selling GE stock all day, every day (will Cramer be allowed to pump the worthless equities of competitor cable and satellite companies going forward?
Inquiring minds want to know), could not stop praising the fabulous improvement in continuing claims which plummeted by a whopping 5,000 from 462k to 457k, one number that everyone ignored, is the explosion in Emergency Unemployment Compensation - yes, the same name for insurance benefits as they roll beyond their standard expiration horizon, and which the Administration is set on extending to cover a period from now to infinity.
That number skyrocketed by 265,300 in one week to an all time record of 3,859,553 for the week ending November 14, from 3,594,253 in the prior week. The chart below does the collapse a little more justice.
ACORN Dispersing Resources to SEIU, other Liberal Groups, House Probe Finds (CNSNews.com)
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, is in the process of changing its name and has already transferred many of its resources to several other left-wing advocacy and political groups, according to a report released Tuesday by Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
While the Justice Department has said that federal housing funds should continue to flow to ACORN, several congressmen, in a joint hearing of the House Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee, said they want a special prosecutor to investigate the use of taxpayer dollars to the group.
Several weeks back, Congress included in the Continuing Appropriations Resolution for 2010 a provision that bars federal funds to ACORN and its “affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations.”
President Obama signed the resolution. But the Justice Department’s opinion issued last week cleared the way for funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to continue going to the organization, a group that many House Republicans have called a “criminal enterprise.”
Former ACORN employee-turned-whistleblower, Anita Moncrief, told the House panel of eight Republicans and no Democrats that the organization continually got federal block grants but did not use the grants for helping the poor as promised.
Rather, ACORN “used the money to fund the political machine,” Moncrief said.
“ACORN makes money off the poor,” Moncrief said. “Poverty is big business for ACORN.”
CNSNews.com could not reach an ACORN spokesman on Tuesday for comment after attempts by phone and e-mail.
But ACORN spokesmen in the past have said that any illegal or unethical incidents were isolated and that the organization is dedicated to helping the poor.
However, the House Oversight report claimed otherwise, saying, “ACORN’s own training manual reflects a business model in which money is taken from poor people and then funneled into partisan political efforts.”
“ACORN is currently in the process of changing its name and has already transferred resources to several chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and possibly Data and Field Services, the Working Families Party, Change to Win and the Council for Unity,” said Rep.
Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee.
A former Dept of Ed organizer at ACORN fraudulently used DOE phone-bill accounts to cash in on more than $500,000 in lavish Verizon customer rewards...
Donnett Davis, 31, Brooklyn, allegedly obtained spa retreats, Yankees/Mets tickets, $5,000 IBM gift certificates and other goodies by registering 9,000 DOE telephone billing codes under an ACORN account in her name...
House Republicans Blast Democrats, Obama Over Alleged ACORN Ties (File a Federal lawsuit) (Fox News)
A handful of House Republicans did their best on Tuesday to shame Democrats and the Obama administration for its supposed connections to the controversial anti-poverty group ACORN.
Republicans also voiced complaints that Democrats are not moving forward with investigations into the organization that is alleged to have committed widespread voter fraud to support Democratic candidates, in violation of the group's tax-exempt status.
"ACORN is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party," Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said at Tuesday's two-hour long partisan forum attended by eight Republicans but no Democrats.
Another source of frustration for Republicans is a legal decision from the Justice Department, made public last week, that says officials at Housing and Urban Development can honor its existing contracts with ACORN despite a recently passed law forbidding federal funds from going to the group.
Black Caucus tells Obama you've done too little for African Americans (The Hill)
Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members on Wednesday criticized the Obama administration for not doing enough to help African-Americans through the bleak economy.
Soon after withholding their votes on a wide-ranging financial services bill, 10 CBC members said they are pressuring the White House to do more.
The House Financial Services Committee voted 31-27 in favor of the bill, but the lawmakers’ boycott came on a major financial measure the administration wants to see Congress pass this month.
“We have not been forceful enough in our efforts to protect the most vulnerable of our population,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who represents one of the nation’s poorest districts.
“We can no longer afford for our public policy to be defined by the worldview of Wall Street.”
Junk Scientist Fraudsters Deleted Data That Proved Earth Was Cooling (GatewayPundit)
Junk Scientists deleted global cooling data that showed the earth was cooling not heating up.
The deleted information is in red. Watts Up With That posted this report that exposes the junk scientists behind global warming as complete frauds.
For the very first time, the Climategate Letters “archived” the deleted portion of the Briffa MXD reconstruction of “Hide the Decline” fame – see here.
Gavin Schmidt claimed that the decline had been “hidden in plain sight” (see here. ). This isn’t true.
The post-1960 data was deleted from the archived version of this reconstruction at NOAA here and not shown in the corresponding figure in Briffa et al 2001.
Nor was the decline shown in the IPCC 2001 graph, one that Mann, Jones, Briffa, Folland and Karl were working in the two weeks prior to the “trick” email (or for that matter in the IPCC 2007 graph, an issue that I’ll return to.)
Meanwhile...In the real world the sun is falling into another funk which means cooler temperatures ahead.
And, Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, claims NASA is hiding their climate data from the public and is ready to sue.
Lord Moncton on Google corruption and Climategate (onenewsnow.com)
Excerpts: "On a related note, Monckton also is accusing Google of playing dirty tricks with Internet searches.
A popular Internet video featuring the noted climate skeptic was allegedly "buried" beneath junk searches on the popular Internet search engine Google."
Monckton says Google knowingly hid the video that featured him discussing the dangers of signing a climate treaty in Copenhagen later this month. [...]
He adds that Al Gore serves as an advisor on Google's board.
"Of the 29 known attendees, only one CEO -- Eric Schmidt of Google -- donated to Obama. Schmidt gave $25,000 in personal contributions to the president's inaugural celebration last January.
Employees from Google Inc. doled out a whopping $803,436 for Obama's presidential campaign -- the fifth highest of any organization to donate to his record-shattering campaign bounty."
Repubs Demand 'Climategate' Investigation, Voice Doubts on Afghan Strategy (HumanEvents.com)
For the first time in decades, congressional Republicans are aggressively on the offensive in the fight against the manmade global warming hoax.
The eco-theocracy -- from ayatollah Al Gore to the lowliest document shredder at the East Anglia University’s “Climate Research Unit” -- has been dealt a body-blow by an unknown hacker responsible for leaking emails exposing collusion between the movement’s top scientists.
In the emails they seemingly plot to evade Freedom of Information Act laws, suppress scientific data that contradicts their pre-conceived notions and manipulate the once-sacred scientific peer review process.
The scandal, inevitably dubbed “Climategate,” offers an inside glimpse into potentially the largest fraud ever perpetrated on the public, relegating Bernie Madoff to the back bench. Only the UN’s “oil for food” scam was bigger.
The scientific peer review process is intended to act as a guarantor of the honesty of data, acting as the ultimate arbiter of what is considered “settled science.”
The leaked emails expose a sect of agenda-driven pseudo-scientists manipulating and even strong-arming the process to squelch publication of dissenting views, seeking a “consensus” of published scientists to authenticate their inconsistent data.
Therein lays the fatal, manmade defect in consensus-driven science.
And Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate Environmental committee, instead of wanting to investigate scientists defrauding the American taxpayer, wants to prosecute the leakers.
Green Is the New Red: Global-warming hysteria was made to order for anti-capitalist militants. (National Review Online)
Colossal spending and regulatory programs impend, based on the Al Gore conventional hysteria that unreduced carbon emissions will destroy the earth.
This will eventually be seen as one of the modern world’s most inexplicable descents into public-policy madness.
The basic relevant facts are that carbon emissions are not the principal, nor even a measurable, factor in global warming, and despite dire forecasts and ever-increasing carbon emissions in the world — especially as the economies of China and India, representing 40 percent of the world’s population, expand by 6 to 10 percent each year — the world has not grown a millidegree warmer since the start of this millennium.
And the mean temperature rose by only 1 degree Celsius in the 25 years before that.
Ripples created by the disclosure of global warming files now being called "ClimateGate" continue to spread, with congressional attention growing and the head of a prominent climate change group stepping aside.
Phil Jones, the head of the Climactic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, said on Tuesday that he will relinquish his post while the U.K. school conducts an investigation into allegations of scientific and professional misconduct.
Jones' announcement comes as he and his allies, who published some of the foundational data used to support the claim that global warming exists, have been pummeled by waves of criticism.
As CBSNews.com reported last week, the leaked files show that prominent scientists were so wedded to theories of man-made global warming that they ridiculed dissenters who asked for copies of their data, plotted how to keep researchers who reached different conclusions from publishing, and concealed apparently buggy computer code from being disclosed under the Freedom of Information law.
The reverberations have extended beyond the campus of the University of East Anglia and the CRU. E-mail messages from Michael Mann, a professor in the meteorology department at Penn State University who has argued that mankind is threatening "entire ecosystems with extinction in the decades ahead if we continue to burn fossil fuels at current rates," appeared in the leaked files.
Now Penn State has opened an investigation into Mann's work, and the U.K.'s weather agency has been forced on the defensive as well.
Amid an international climate-change scandal involving hacked e-mails just days before a major U.N. climate summit of world leaders, it is instructive to profile top White House officials who are drafting President Obama's climate policy.
Some of the officials include known supporters of socialism who have advocated using environmental activism to spread America's wealth.
'Climate czar' Carol Browner Carol Browner's official title is assistant to the president for energy and climate change.
She formerly served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency administrator during the Clinton administration and was Florida secretary of the environment.
Browner was a member of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society at Socialist International, a group that Discover the Networks reports is the "umbrella for 170 'social democratic, socialist and labor parties' in 55 countries."
The Washington Times explained Browner's group called for "global governance" and asserts rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.
A Washington Examiner editorial in January noted that both Browner's picture and biography had been removed from Socialist International's site but that her name was still listed next to the photo-biographies of her 14 colleagues on the commission.
The New Zeal blog previously documented Browner worked in the 1970s for Citizen Action, founded by Steve Max and Heather Booth, both extremists from the Students for a Democratic Society from which the Weathermen terrorist group later splintered.
Both later affiliated with Democratic Socialists of America.
CAUGHT GREEN-HANDED! (Science and Public Policy.org)
He had caught the world’s politico-scientific establishment green-handed.
Yet his first attempts to reveal the highly-profitable fraud and systematic corruption at the very heart of the UN’s climate panel and among the scientists most prominent in influencing it’s prejudiced and absurdly doom-laden reports had failed.
He had made the mistake of sending the data-file to the mainstream news media, which had also profited for decades by fostering the “global warming” scare, and by generally denying anyone who disagreed with the official viewpoint any platform.
Obama scientist sees strong consensus on climate (news.stv.tv)
The science showing that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are causing a dangerous warming of the world's climate is sound, President Barack Obama's top scientists said on Wednesday, despite controversial e-mails stolen from climate researchers.
E-mails from Britain's University of East Anglia, made public last month after being obtained by hackers, show climate researchers deriding global warming skeptics, who argue that the messages show that the researchers manipulated data to make climate change appear more definitive.
‘Nations will vanish and millions lose their homes to rising seas’ (Says "Scientists") (timesonline.co.uk) They really are like CHICKEN LITTLE!
A rise in sea levels of 1.4m predicted today in a major climate report would result in the loss of entire nations and the displacement of about ten per cent of the world’s population, according to scientists.
The scenario described in the latest report of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research would leave tropical islands such as the Maldives and Tuvalu submerged and result in the loss of large parts of Bangladesh and the Indian Ocean Coast.
Fortunately, the problem can be remedied by sufficiently taxing the USA.
Head of Embattled UK Climate Center Steps Down Amid Misconduct Allegations(CRU smear campaign?) (Daily Tech)
Director admits emails about apparent warming deception "do not read well"
Supporters of warming have sought to minimize the results. While they have not necessarily questioned the authenticity of the leaked archive, they argue that the leak is a smear campaign.
Jones has personally endorsed this theory, writing, "One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email correspondence has been stolen and published at this time.
This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks."
The leak indeed offers unfortunate tidings for proponents of climate change legislation. With the U.S. preparing to commit to unprecedented and expensive emissions reductions at the UN Copenhagen global warming talks, members of the U.S. government are now voicing doubts.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, Wisc.-R, is quoted as saying the emails "read more like scientific fascism than scientific process."
His colleague Rep. Ed Markey, Mass.-D, however complains that such criticism is merely a distraction from the "catastrophic threat to our planet."
Jones, at the center of the scandal, has made a comment that indicates the emails may be valid.
He admitted in a post that the emails "do not read well", but dismisses claims of data alteration and misconduct as mere "confusion".
A close supporter of Jones, Lord Stern, author of the U.K.'s 2006 Stern Report, on Tuesday looked to help the embattled climate change movement by speaking out on his views.
He says that the evidence of manmade warming is "overwhelming". He added that all views on the topic should be heard, but that the opinions of warming skeptics might not be valid views in his estimation.
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing.[The people who count the votes decide everything."] Joseph Stalin It was reminiscent of one of those Halloween or Freddie Kruger Movies. Just when a victim thinks are safe behind a closed door the find out they they have locked themselves in a room with the monster. And that's just what happened to Norm Coleman and the GOP in Minnesota this past election. The "Monster" is Minneapolis Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. Like most Secretary of States, one of Richie's responsibilities is counting a confirming the votes. Richie a former Community Organizer,...
Sen. John McCain is urging senior citizens to cut up their AARP membership cards and mail the pieces back to the organization, claiming AARP has betrayed them.
Citing AARP's past opposition to proposed cuts in Medicare, McCain expressed dismay Thursday that the senior group has suddenly changed its position to support $460 billion in cuts to the program proposed by Democrats to help pay for health care legislation.
"Shame on AARP," McCain, R-Ariz., said Thursday on the Senate floor. "Take your AARP card, cut it in half and send it back. They've betrayed you."
"If we're talking about Medicare cuts alone as a way of financing health reform, we would fight that with all of our strength," he added. "We've gone as far as we can down that road."
Democrats throughout Thursday's Senate debate used AARP's endorsement of their bill to blunt Republican charges that they are gutting Medicare. AARP rode to the rescue of Democrats on Wednesday, announcing its support for billions in Medicare cuts to help fund the legislation.
As Republicans pressed to restore the cuts, AARP said Democrats merely were recommending elimination of waste and inefficiency within the giant health care program for seniors.
"Most importantly, the legislation does not reduce any guaranteed Medicare benefits," A. Barry Rand, AARP's CEO, said in a letter to senators.
SALEM, Mass. — A sports reporter accused of running a prostitution business in Massachusetts is facing seven new charges, including a witness-intimidation count.
The Salem News reports that Massachusetts prosecutors said in documents filed Thursday that Kevin Provencher told two women who allegedly worked for him as prostitutes that his lawyer would "tear them apart" in the media if they spoke to police.
Provencher was also indicted on six new prostitution-related counts. He was initially arrested in July on two counts of deriving support from a prostitute.
The 51-year-old Provencher worked for the New Hampshire Union Leader for 23 years, but has been suspended.
His lawyer could not immediately be reached. No one answered the phone at her office Friday morning.
Some seniors used AARP for hotel discounts, but seniors now angry with AARP say to just ask for the senior discount and the hotels will give it to you. They don’t want any part of the argument of giving discounts in the name of a disgraced front group for an insurance company.
***Citing AARP's past opposition to proposed cuts in Medicare, McCain expressed dismay Thursday that the senior group has suddenly changed its position to support $460 billion in cuts to the program proposed by Democrats to help pay for health care legislation.***
ROFL! Talk about hyprocisy! This man has absolutely no shame.
50 comments:
Haven't noticed any bar-charts touting your Web traffic lately.
Not quite so stellar when quarterly layoffs aren't imminent?
C'mon ... give us the full disclosure. Or are you afraid of losing advertisers?
The $50 Billion New Socialist Media (AIM Report) McClatchy’s “Ja Comrade” wet dream to this type of press.
Robert W. McChesney, the socialist professor whose Free Press organization is leading the charge for the $50 billion transformation of the media, hosts a one-sided, tax-supported radio program sponsored by the University of Illinois that could serve as a model for the "New Public Media" the group has envisioned for America.
As Accuracy in Media was the first to disclose, McChesney recently introduced Obama's anti-American pastor Jeremiah Wright at a celebration of the socialist publication Monthly Review. Wright praised Marxism and called America "land of the greed and home of the slave."
As AIM has documented, McChesney's organization, Free Press, has led the campaign for what it calls "New Public Media."
McChesney's "Media Matters" show on WILL radio AM 580 in Urbana, Illinois, may be the model for what Free Press has in mind.
The Sunday show is an examination of politics and media issues from a hard-left perspective and serves as a personal propaganda vehicle for McChesney's favorite political causes and candidates.
In response to an inquiry from Accuracy in Media, McChesney couldn't name one conservative who has been on his show since it was launched in 2002.
Mark Leonard, general manager of WILL, said, "It doesn't concern me," when asked about the complete lack of conservative guests.
"What we celebrate is a diversity of points of view," he said, although he couldn't name one conservative on the air on WILL.
He said he assumes that conservatives sometimes call into the "Media Matters" program, and that was good enough for him.
So, what works best for you? Socialism, Communism or Fascism?
WSJ Freelancer Plagiarized Column, Attributed Stolen Quotes To Fake People (The Business Insider)
The Journal has a Jayson Blair moment. The Wall Street Journal is having a Jayson Blair moment.
The paper just announced that it is pulling a Nov. 10 "New Global Indian" column because the freelancer who wrote it, Mona Sarika, plagiarized several sources and attributed stolen quotes to made-up names.
Mona's bio on her HUFFINGTON POST BLOGGER PROFILE describes her as "a graduate student and freelance writer who hails from India and currently lives in New York City."
Here's the announcement: Nov. 10"New Global Indian" online column by New York City freelance writer Mona Sarika has been found to contain information that was plagiarized from several publications, including the Washington Post, Little India, India Today and San Francisco magazine.
In the column, "Homeward Bound," about H-1B visa holders returning to India, Ms. Sarika also re-used direct quotes from other publications, without attribution, and changed the original speakers' names to individuals who appear to be fabricated.
The column is the only work by Ms. Sarika to be published by the Journal, and it has been removed from the Journal's Web sites.
T Washington Times announces new structure, layoffs (The Washington Times)
Acting Publisher Jonathan Slevin on Wednesday announced plans for a "new" Washington Times that will focus more narrowly on its core areas of coverage while operating with a deeply reduced work force.
"We will focus on our strengths -- exclusives, in-depth reporting, politics, enterprise stories, geostrategic and national news, plus cultural reporting based on traditional values,"
Mr. Slevin said at a meeting of the newspaper's editorial and support staff who were warned to expect "significant staff reductions" within 60 days.
All employees were handed letters advising them that at least 40 percent of the workforce will be laid off in the coming weeks. The cuts are necessary for the newspaper "to keep pace with the dynamically changing economics of the news business," Mr. Slevin said.
Mr. Slevin, who also serves as acting president of The Washington Times, also said the paper would shift from its current subscription-based model to a controlled circulation model where newspapers will be distributed free of charge in key locations aimed at Washington policy- and opinion-makers.
Home delivery will continue to be available at a premium price, he said. Current subscribers will be offered the electronic edition, the national weekly edition or other options.
"The new Washington Times will continue to focus on fearless reporting, crisp editorials and traditional American values," Mr. Slevin said.
"We are a 21st-century media company, refocusing as a provider of insight in the nation's capital. We are reshaping operations to keep pace with the news business."
The mission of The Times, Mr. Slevin told employees, is "to provide an independent, alternative voice," delivered on the multiple platforms of the contemporary press, including digital, print and broadcast formats.
Like many news organizations, The Times is facing a challenging financial scenario.
The crappiest NYTimes column on Obamacare just got crappier; (Michelle Malkin)
Today, I did something that Pulitzer Prize-winning NYTimes columnist Nick Kristof apparently didn’t do:
I talked to a spokesman at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon.
I called them up after OHSU’s Dr. Johnny Delashaw left a comment about Kristof’s piece spotlighting the horrible plight of John Brodniak, an Oregon man with a neurological condition that he says no one would treat.
Kristof used Brodniak’s plight to argue for universal health care, decry Brodniak’s deadly lack of insurance (even though he got Medicaid coverage in August), and lambaste doctors for refusing to treat Brodniak due to low reimbursements.
Well, OHSU confirmed for me two things:
1) OHSU is a safety-net hospital not far from where Brodniak lives.
The hospital accepts all Medicaid patients and would not turn Brodniak away.
Okay, are you ready for Number 2?
2) Brodniak is a patient at OHSU — and has been a patient there for the past three weeks.
In other words, at the time Kristof’s article was published this past Sunday, Brodniak was already being treated and cared for by some of the best neurologists in the country!
The spokesman told me that the Brodniaks were willing to confirm “reluctantly” for me that he has been a patient there for nearly a month, but they refuse to talk to me directly.
The spokesman also told me that OHSU will not make its doctors available for further comment on the matter.
Kristof’s readers have been raising money to pay for the Brodniaks to get him treated. But Brodniak is covered. He doesn’t have to pay a dime.
Will Kristof tell his readers the rest of the “horror story?” Or isn’t the whole truth fit to print in the Fishwrap of Record?
A reminder of the hysterical title of Kristof’s piece:
“Are We Going To Let John Die?”
Er, why don’t you pose that question to the doctors who have been treating John Brodniak the past three weeks and tell your readers to stop bashing Joe Lieberman for opposing the Demcare public option?
Journalistic prose that tugs at the heartstrings and serves the proletariat can not be hindered by mere facts!
CNN: Missing Dobbs (RealClearPolitcs.com)
Could things get any worse for CNN? Apparently, the answer is 'yes.'
The pioneering and once dominant leader in cable news has been hemorrhaging viewers for some time and earlier this year suffered the indignity of slipping to last place among cable news networks, behind even its sister network Headline News.
Now come the November Nielsen ratings showing that the surprise departure of Lou Dobbs has cost the network even more viewers.
After Dobbs announced his resignation on air on Wednesday November 11, CNN suffered a 25% decline among all viewers in Dobbs' 7pm time slot, and a 26% decline among adults 25-54.
Meanwhile - surprise, surprise - CNN's competition in the 7pm slot at FOX News, The FOX Report with Shephard Smith, scored its highest rated month of the year in November with more than 2.1 million total viewers and just over 500,000 viewers in the A25-54 demo.
CNN's fall after Dobbs' departure also allowed MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews to eke its way into second place 7 pm slot in November with 672,000 total viewers and 184,000 viewers among Adults 25-54.
'Biggest Loser' Outdraws Obama? (JamieWearingFool)
Alternate working headline: Biggest Loser beats Biggest Loser
Here's a look at the numbers. If you combine the entire 8 pm hour when Obama spoke, the four networks showing him and a show afterward (except for CBS) within the hour combined for 30.2 million viewers.
Based on Obama fatigue and his numbers for primetime speeches this year, however, you can figure perhaps up to a third of the audience tuned in after his self-serving speech.
Even if you can say he had that entire 30.2 million, that's still over 10 million fewer viewers than the economic recovery speech of March 24.
Consider "Biggest Loser" and Obama on NBC at 8 drew 8.1 million viewers. In the 9 pm hour, BL drew 9.7 and then 10.2 in the 10 pm slot, which just happens to also beat Jay Leno's average in that timeslot for NBC. So BL increased viewership in the two hours after Obama.
White House Blocks Testimony on Party Crashers (New York Times)
But this is the most open and transparent administration ever?
The White House on Wednesday invoked the separation of powers to keep Desiree Rogers, President Obama’s social secretary, from testifying on Capitol Hill about how a couple of aspiring reality television show celebrities crashed a state dinner for the prime minister of India last week.
And the couple will not testify, either, according to a statement released late Wednesday by a public relations firm.
But if a Republican administration were to do this, the media would be unrelenting in bashing it for it’s secretiveness.
Mickey Rooney turned away at White House Party (Washington Times)
Would-be reality TV stars can crash the White House.
But real stars -- the old-fashioned kind? Forget about it.
G2 has learned that entertainment legend Mickey Rooney, who has met every previous president since FDR, tried to crash the White House by showing up without an appointment while he was in town early last month.
Dennis Miller on Crashergate Couple: At Least Obama Didn’t Bow to Them (Video) (GatewayPundit)
Dennis Miller praises Barack Obama on The O’Reilly Factor...For not bowing to the Crashergate couple:
Dennis Miller: “I want them to dispose her and get her to admit she’s 44 under oath...I’m just proud of our president when they showed him, it was nice to finally see him not bow to somebody, you know.”
Al Gore cancels lecture during COP15 (Berlingske)
Even people in the lamestream media are going to have to start asking him questions. (So instead of going green...gore went YELLOW?)
Berlingske regret to announce that Al Gore has canceled his event. De over 3.000 læsere, der har købt billet, får pengene retur. The more than 3,000 readers who bought a ticket, get money back.
The group says Gore canceled the lecture Thursday, citing unforeseen changes in his schedule.
Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider says the decision was made because of "all the events going on with the summit." Dec. 16 is a key date for the meeting because that's when the ministerial segment starts.
Chief editor Lisbeth Knudsen says it's a "great disappointment" that Gore canceled and that all tickets will be refunded.
Media Ignore Al Gore’s Financial Ties to Global Warming (News Busters)
As NewsBusters reported here, here, and here, there are huge dollars to be made from global warming alarmism.
However, conceivably no one is better positioned to financially benefit from this scam than Dr. Global Warming himself, former Vice President Al Gore, a fact that the media will surely not share with Americans any time soon.
Yet, if America’s press would take some time out of their busy schedules covering the earth-shattering details surrounding Anna Nicole Smith’s demise, they might find a deliciously inconvenient truth about the soon-to-be-Dr. Gore that is significantly more fascinating and diabolical than anything likely to emerge from that courtroom in Broward County, Florida.
As reported by Dan Riehl (emphasis mine throughout):
Former Vice President Al Gore has built a Green money-making machine capable of eventually generating billions of dollars for investors, including himself, but he set it up so that the average Joe can't afford to play on Gore's terms.
And the US portion is headed up by a former Gore staffer and fund raiser who previously ran afoul of both the FEC and the DOJ, before Janet Reno jumped in and shut down an investigation during the Clinton years.
Think Katie, Charlie, or Brian will be all over this tonight?
Regardless, that was just the tip of the questionably melting iceberg as reported by Bill Hobbs in Nashville, Tennessee:
[H]ow Gore buys his "carbon offsets," as revealed by The Tennessean raises serious questions.
According to the newspaper's report, Gore buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management:
Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets.
The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe...
‘Will Algore give back the multi millions he’s scammed?” Well if things pan out he will spend a lot on legal fees and PR firms.
Dutch: Gore Wrong on Snows of Kilimanjaro (Pajamas MEdia)
Newspapers and news sites in the Netherlands today extensively broke the news of the findings of a research team led by Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damste — a leading molecular paleontologist at Utrecht University and winner of the prestigious Spinoza Prize — about the melting icecap of the Kilimanjaro, the African mountain that became a symbol of anthropogenic global warming.
Professor Sinninghe Damste’s research, as discussed on the site of the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (DOSR) — a governmental body — shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago.
The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of “a natural process of dry and wet periods.”
The present melting is not the result of “environmental damage caused by man.”...
Obama’s Socialist Science Czar Grilled at Global Warming Hearing (Video) (GatewayPundit)
GOP Reps Slam Science Czar at Global Warming Hearings–
Obama’s socialist Science Czar John Holdren, who once said that forced abortions were needed to save the planet, is linked to the Climategate Scandal.
Ranking Member Rep. Sensenbrenner grilled Science Czar Dr. Holdren at the Global Warming hearings today: Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI) was brilliant in grilling Holdren on global warming junk science.
During the hearing Holdren tried to define what the meaning of “trick” is.
The AP reported: House Republicans pointed to controversial e-mails leaked from climate scientists and said it was evidence of corruption.
Top administration scientists looking at the same thing found no such sign, saying it doesn’t change the fact that the world is warming.
The e-mails from a British university’s climate center were obtained by computer hackers and posted online about two weeks ago. Climate change skeptics contend the messages reveal that researchers manipulated and suppressed data and stifled dissent, and conservative bloggers are dubbing it “Climategate.”
In the first Capitol Hill airing of the issue, House Republicans Wednesday read excerpts from at least eight of the e-mails, saying they showed the world needs to re-examine experts’ claims that the science on warming is settled.
One e-mail from 2003 was by John Holdren, then of Harvard University and now the president’s science adviser.
The exploding controversy led Phil Jones to step aside as head of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, the source of the e-mail exchanges.
The university is investigating the matter. Penn State University also is looking into e-mails by its own researcher, Michael Mann.
House Republicans asked for a separate hearing or investigation into the issue, but were rebuffed by Democrats.
“These e-mails show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy that was inspired by ideology, condescension and profit,” said U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.
Among the messages that Sensenbrenner read was one from Jones, the East Anglia scientist, in which he wrote about a “trick of adding in the real temps” in an exchange about long-term climate trends.
Holdren responded that the word “trick” did not mean manipulation of data, but about a “clever way” to tackle a problem.
Another Jones’ e-mail read, “I would like to see the climate change happen so the science could be proved right.”
Climategate: Mann Throws Jones Under the Bus (GatewayPundit)
Dr. Michael Mann co-authored the famous graph of temperature trends dubbed the “hockey stick graph.”
Last week Mann was implicated in the global warming email and document conspiracy.
Mann’s controversial work has been challenged in the past. Yesterday Dr. Mann threw fellow junk scientist Phil Jones under the bus.
The Telegraph reported: Prof Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has been accused of manipulating climate change data following thousands of leaked documents that suggested academics delete sensitive emails to evade Freedom of Information requests from climate change sceptics.
Prof Jones, who has denied altering figures, has since said he would stand down from his post while an independent review is carried out.
One of the scientists to whom the emails were addressed, Professor Michael Mann, the Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University has moved to distance himself from some of the comments in the emails that suggest scientists did not want the IPCC, the UN body charged with monitoring climate change, to consider studies that challenged the view global warming was genuine and man-made.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight, Prof Mann said: “I can’t put myself in the mind of the person who wrote that email and sent it. I in no way endorse what was in that email.”
Prof Mann also said he could not “justify” a request from Prof Jones that he should delete some of his own emails to prevent them from being seen by outsiders.
ClimateGate Held Hostage: Day 13 (NewsBusters)
As the MRC’s Business and Media Institute reported on Wednesday, in the twelve days since emails were released showing climate scientists manipulating global warming data, many in the media have been stunningly silent.
The evening network newscasts on ABC, CBS, NBC have failed to make any mention of the scandal going on day thirteen since the story broke.
On NBC’s Nightly News on Wednesday, anchor Brian Williams failed to cover the climate controversy, but did manage to find the time to congratulate himself on his fifth anniversary of taking over the broadcast from Tom Brokaw.
As NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard reported on Wednesday, even faux news anchor Jon Stewart referenced ClimateGate on The Daily Show.
President Obama's jobs summit is a great feast of folly (New York Daily News)
Politicians constantly need to create the impression that they're actually getting paid to do something.
President Obama is no different. Today, the White House will host a Jobs Summit featuring 100-plus business leaders, union chiefs, academics, mayors and representatives of nonprofit groups.
Obama's goal is to show he's serious about taking action on the backsliding economy and to convince the electorate that public activity means real policy action.
I'll have to crash Obama's party, because summits are giant publicity stunts where loads of taxpayer money is spent on fancy backdrops, flower arrangements and so much glad-handing and back-slapping that the participants leave with calluses and whiplash.
Does Obama Hate Democracy? (Creative Minority)
The Obama administration messed up when it decided to back the aspiring Chavezian thug Zelaya in Honduras.
Zelaya had attempted to illegally change the constitution to remain in power. For this he was legally ousted from office.
Everyone who spent more than five minutes looking into this topic understood that the people who ousted Zelaya, while not perfect, were certainly on the side of the angels on this one.
Everyone, that is, except Obama and his State Department.
Marxist Physician Mentor Says Obama Is Being ‘Dishonest’ About Single Payer (video) (Naked Emperor News)
Dr. Quentin Young: "Barack Obama...categorically said single payer was the best way."
Isn’t it odd how all of Obama’s mentors have been Communists or Marxists but somehow, he is not? That’s so weird...
A lobbyist by any other name: SEIU and the Obama White House
(Big Goverment) So much for having the most transparent administration eveh
Successfully demonizing Washington insiders on the campaign trail, President Obama needed to find a way to meet with lobbyists without appearing hypocritical.
The administration’s advice to lobbyists? De-register.
For an administration that promised to renounce interest groups, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) certainly has the president’s ear and is sure to be a major player in the December jobs summit.
In 2008, SEIU donated nearly $28 million to the Obama campaign setting the stage for SEIU President Andy Stern to become the White House’s most frequent visitor in 2009, according to White House visitor logs.
Anna Burger, Treasure of the SEIU and Chairwoman of their Change to Win campaign was even appointed to Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board earlier this year and will represent SEIU at the December jobs summit held by the White House.
Dem’s NEW Jobs Plan will Only Cost America $300 Billion (GatewayPundit)
Considering their last failed jobs plan cost $787 billion consider this a bargain.
Democrats tripled the national deficit in less than one year after their last failed stimulus.
They’ve increased the national debt to $12 Trillion. And they’ve nearly doubled the unemployment rate since the Bush years.
Now they want to do it all over again. The Hill reported:
The cost of a new jobs bill Democrats hope to move early next year runs to nearly $300 billion when major proposals under serious consideration are added up.
Lawmakers are calling for extending aid to the unemployed, infrastructure spending, a hiring tax credit and increased small business loans.
A number of the jobs proposals backed by Democrats make up a $230 billion package proposed by Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com, who made a presentation to Senate Democrats Wednesday.
The provisions supported by Zandi along with new spending on infrastructure, a favored approach of top House Democrats, would cost between $291 billion and $299 billion, according to estimates by lawmakers and economists.
Aides cautioned that Democratic leaders in both chambers are just beginning to consider what will go into the bill, and that estimates based on standalone bills may not mesh with the final jobs legislation.
Last week Nancy Pelosi confessed that the the reason Americans are mad about their record spending is that “they’re not getting anything for it.”
But, that won’t stop them from repeating the whole disaster again.
The Untold Story - Emergency Unemployment Compensation Claims Surge By 265k In One Week (Zero Hedge)
Even as CNBC, which seems to be unaware it is now under new ownership and can stop selling GE stock all day, every day (will Cramer be allowed to pump the worthless equities of competitor cable and satellite companies going forward?
Inquiring minds want to know), could not stop praising the fabulous improvement in continuing claims which plummeted by a whopping 5,000 from 462k to 457k, one number that everyone ignored, is the explosion in Emergency Unemployment Compensation - yes, the same name for insurance benefits as they roll beyond their standard expiration horizon, and which the Administration is set on extending to cover a period from now to infinity.
That number skyrocketed by 265,300 in one week to an all time record of 3,859,553 for the week ending November 14, from 3,594,253 in the prior week. The chart below does the collapse a little more justice.
ACORN Dispersing Resources to SEIU, other Liberal Groups, House Probe Finds (CNSNews.com)
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, is in the process of changing its name and has already transferred many of its resources to several other left-wing advocacy and political groups, according to a report released Tuesday by Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
While the Justice Department has said that federal housing funds should continue to flow to ACORN, several congressmen, in a joint hearing of the House Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee, said they want a special prosecutor to investigate the use of taxpayer dollars to the group.
Several weeks back, Congress included in the Continuing Appropriations Resolution for 2010 a provision that bars federal funds to ACORN and its “affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations.”
President Obama signed the resolution. But the Justice Department’s opinion issued last week cleared the way for funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to continue going to the organization, a group that many House Republicans have called a “criminal enterprise.”
Former ACORN employee-turned-whistleblower, Anita Moncrief, told the House panel of eight Republicans and no Democrats that the organization continually got federal block grants but did not use the grants for helping the poor as promised.
Rather, ACORN “used the money to fund the political machine,” Moncrief said.
“ACORN makes money off the poor,” Moncrief said. “Poverty is big business for ACORN.”
CNSNews.com could not reach an ACORN spokesman on Tuesday for comment after attempts by phone and e-mail.
But ACORN spokesmen in the past have said that any illegal or unethical incidents were isolated and that the organization is dedicated to helping the poor.
However, the House Oversight report claimed otherwise, saying, “ACORN’s own training manual reflects a business model in which money is taken from poor people and then funneled into partisan political efforts.”
“ACORN is currently in the process of changing its name and has already transferred resources to several chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and possibly Data and Field Services, the Working Families Party, Change to Win and the Council for Unity,” said Rep.
Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee.
Acorn 'phone-y; Probers eye $500G rip-off ("community organizing" in action) (NY POST)
A former Dept of Ed organizer at ACORN fraudulently used DOE phone-bill accounts to cash in on more than $500,000 in lavish Verizon customer rewards...
Donnett Davis, 31, Brooklyn, allegedly obtained spa retreats, Yankees/Mets tickets, $5,000 IBM gift certificates and other goodies by registering 9,000 DOE telephone billing codes under an ACORN account in her name...
House Republicans Blast Democrats, Obama Over Alleged ACORN Ties (File a Federal lawsuit) (Fox News)
A handful of House Republicans did their best on Tuesday to shame Democrats and the Obama administration for its supposed connections to the controversial anti-poverty group ACORN.
Republicans also voiced complaints that Democrats are not moving forward with investigations into the organization that is alleged to have committed widespread voter fraud to support Democratic candidates, in violation of the group's tax-exempt status.
"ACORN is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party," Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said at Tuesday's two-hour long partisan forum attended by eight Republicans but no Democrats.
Another source of frustration for Republicans is a legal decision from the Justice Department, made public last week, that says officials at Housing and Urban Development can honor its existing contracts with ACORN despite a recently passed law forbidding federal funds from going to the group.
Black Caucus tells Obama you've done too little for African Americans (The Hill)
Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members on Wednesday criticized the Obama administration for not doing enough to help African-Americans through the bleak economy.
Soon after withholding their votes on a wide-ranging financial services bill, 10 CBC members said they are pressuring the White House to do more.
The House Financial Services Committee voted 31-27 in favor of the bill, but the lawmakers’ boycott came on a major financial measure the administration wants to see Congress pass this month.
“We have not been forceful enough in our efforts to protect the most vulnerable of our population,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who represents one of the nation’s poorest districts.
“We can no longer afford for our public policy to be defined by the worldview of Wall Street.”
Junk Scientist Fraudsters Deleted Data That Proved Earth Was Cooling (GatewayPundit)
Junk Scientists deleted global cooling data that showed the earth was cooling not heating up.
The deleted information is in red. Watts Up With That posted this report that exposes the junk scientists behind global warming as complete frauds.
For the very first time, the Climategate Letters “archived” the deleted portion of the Briffa MXD reconstruction of “Hide the Decline” fame – see here.
Gavin Schmidt claimed that the decline had been “hidden in plain sight” (see here. ). This isn’t true.
The post-1960 data was deleted from the archived version of this reconstruction at NOAA here and not shown in the corresponding figure in Briffa et al 2001.
Nor was the decline shown in the IPCC 2001 graph, one that Mann, Jones, Briffa, Folland and Karl were working in the two weeks prior to the “trick” email (or for that matter in the IPCC 2007 graph, an issue that I’ll return to.)
Meanwhile...In the real world the sun is falling into another funk which means cooler temperatures ahead.
And, Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, claims NASA is hiding their climate data from the public and is ready to sue.
Lord Moncton on Google corruption and Climategate (onenewsnow.com)
Excerpts: "On a related note, Monckton also is accusing Google of playing dirty tricks with Internet searches.
A popular Internet video featuring the noted climate skeptic was allegedly "buried" beneath junk searches on the popular Internet search engine Google."
Monckton says Google knowingly hid the video that featured him discussing the dangers of signing a climate treaty in Copenhagen later this month. [...]
He adds that Al Gore serves as an advisor on Google's board.
"Of the 29 known attendees, only one CEO -- Eric Schmidt of Google -- donated to Obama. Schmidt gave $25,000 in personal contributions to the president's inaugural celebration last January.
Employees from Google Inc. doled out a whopping $803,436 for Obama's presidential campaign -- the fifth highest of any organization to donate to his record-shattering campaign bounty."
Repubs Demand 'Climategate' Investigation, Voice Doubts on Afghan Strategy (HumanEvents.com)
For the first time in decades, congressional Republicans are aggressively on the offensive in the fight against the manmade global warming hoax.
The eco-theocracy -- from ayatollah Al Gore to the lowliest document shredder at the East Anglia University’s “Climate Research Unit” -- has been dealt a body-blow by an unknown hacker responsible for leaking emails exposing collusion between the movement’s top scientists.
In the emails they seemingly plot to evade Freedom of Information Act laws, suppress scientific data that contradicts their pre-conceived notions and manipulate the once-sacred scientific peer review process.
The scandal, inevitably dubbed “Climategate,” offers an inside glimpse into potentially the largest fraud ever perpetrated on the public, relegating Bernie Madoff to the back bench. Only the UN’s “oil for food” scam was bigger.
The scientific peer review process is intended to act as a guarantor of the honesty of data, acting as the ultimate arbiter of what is considered “settled science.”
The leaked emails expose a sect of agenda-driven pseudo-scientists manipulating and even strong-arming the process to squelch publication of dissenting views, seeking a “consensus” of published scientists to authenticate their inconsistent data.
Therein lays the fatal, manmade defect in consensus-driven science.
And Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate Environmental committee, instead of wanting to investigate scientists defrauding the American taxpayer, wants to prosecute the leakers.
Green Is the New Red: Global-warming hysteria was made to order for anti-capitalist militants. (National Review Online)
Colossal spending and regulatory programs impend, based on the Al Gore conventional hysteria that unreduced carbon emissions will destroy the earth.
This will eventually be seen as one of the modern world’s most inexplicable descents into public-policy madness.
The basic relevant facts are that carbon emissions are not the principal, nor even a measurable, factor in global warming, and despite dire forecasts and ever-increasing carbon emissions in the world — especially as the economies of China and India, representing 40 percent of the world’s population, expand by 6 to 10 percent each year — the world has not grown a millidegree warmer since the start of this millennium.
And the mean temperature rose by only 1 degree Celsius in the 25 years before that.
Fallout Over "ClimateGate" Data Leak Grows (CBS)
Ripples created by the disclosure of global warming files now being called "ClimateGate" continue to spread, with congressional attention growing and the head of a prominent climate change group stepping aside.
Phil Jones, the head of the Climactic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, said on Tuesday that he will relinquish his post while the U.K. school conducts an investigation into allegations of scientific and professional misconduct.
Jones' announcement comes as he and his allies, who published some of the foundational data used to support the claim that global warming exists, have been pummeled by waves of criticism.
As CBSNews.com reported last week, the leaked files show that prominent scientists were so wedded to theories of man-made global warming that they ridiculed dissenters who asked for copies of their data, plotted how to keep researchers who reached different conclusions from publishing, and concealed apparently buggy computer code from being disclosed under the Freedom of Information law.
The reverberations have extended beyond the campus of the University of East Anglia and the CRU. E-mail messages from Michael Mann, a professor in the meteorology department at Penn State University who has argued that mankind is threatening "entire ecosystems with extinction in the decades ahead if we continue to burn fossil fuels at current rates," appeared in the leaked files.
Now Penn State has opened an investigation into Mann's work, and the U.K.'s weather agency has been forced on the defensive as well.
Meet Obama's climate 'experts'
Amid an international climate-change scandal involving hacked e-mails just days before a major U.N. climate summit of world leaders, it is instructive to profile top White House officials who are drafting President Obama's climate policy.
Some of the officials include known supporters of socialism who have advocated using environmental activism to spread America's wealth.
'Climate czar' Carol Browner
Carol Browner's official title is assistant to the president for energy and climate change.
She formerly served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency administrator during the Clinton administration and was Florida secretary of the environment.
Browner was a member of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society at Socialist International, a group that Discover the Networks reports is the "umbrella for 170 'social democratic, socialist and labor parties' in 55 countries."
The Washington Times explained Browner's group called for "global governance" and asserts rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.
A Washington Examiner editorial in January noted that both Browner's picture and biography had been removed from Socialist International's site but that her name was still listed next to the photo-biographies of her 14 colleagues on the commission.
The New Zeal blog previously documented Browner worked in the 1970s for Citizen Action, founded by Steve Max and Heather Booth, both extremists from the Students for a Democratic Society from which the Weathermen terrorist group later splintered.
Both later affiliated with Democratic Socialists of America.
CAUGHT GREEN-HANDED! (Science and Public Policy.org)
He had caught the world’s politico-scientific establishment green-handed.
Yet his first attempts to reveal the highly-profitable fraud and systematic corruption at the very heart of the UN’s climate panel and among the scientists most prominent in influencing it’s prejudiced and absurdly doom-laden reports had failed.
He had made the mistake of sending the data-file to the mainstream news media, which had also profited for decades by fostering the “global warming” scare, and by generally denying anyone who disagreed with the official viewpoint any platform.
Obama scientist sees strong consensus on climate (news.stv.tv)
The science showing that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are causing a dangerous warming of the world's climate is sound, President Barack Obama's top scientists said on Wednesday, despite controversial e-mails stolen from climate researchers.
E-mails from Britain's University of East Anglia, made public last month after being obtained by hackers, show climate researchers deriding global warming skeptics, who argue that the messages show that the researchers manipulated data to make climate change appear more definitive.
‘Nations will vanish and millions lose their homes to rising seas’ (Says "Scientists") (timesonline.co.uk) They really are like CHICKEN LITTLE!
A rise in sea levels of 1.4m predicted today in a major climate report would result in the loss of entire nations and the displacement of about ten per cent of the world’s population, according to scientists.
The scenario described in the latest report of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research would leave tropical islands such as the Maldives and Tuvalu submerged and result in the loss of large parts of Bangladesh and the Indian Ocean Coast.
Fortunately, the problem can be remedied by sufficiently taxing the USA.
Head of Embattled UK Climate Center Steps Down Amid Misconduct Allegations(CRU smear campaign?) (Daily Tech)
Director admits emails about apparent warming deception "do not read well"
Supporters of warming have sought to minimize the results. While they have not necessarily questioned the authenticity of the leaked archive, they argue that the leak is a smear campaign.
Jones has personally endorsed this theory, writing, "One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email correspondence has been stolen and published at this time.
This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks."
The leak indeed offers unfortunate tidings for proponents of climate change legislation. With the U.S. preparing to commit to unprecedented and expensive emissions reductions at the UN Copenhagen global warming talks, members of the U.S. government are now voicing doubts.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, Wisc.-R, is quoted as saying the emails "read more like scientific fascism than scientific process."
His colleague Rep. Ed Markey, Mass.-D, however complains that such criticism is merely a distraction from the "catastrophic threat to our planet."
Jones, at the center of the scandal, has made a comment that indicates the emails may be valid.
He admitted in a post that the emails "do not read well", but dismisses claims of data alteration and misconduct as mere "confusion".
A close supporter of Jones, Lord Stern, author of the U.K.'s 2006 Stern Report, on Tuesday looked to help the embattled climate change movement by speaking out on his views.
He says that the evidence of manmade warming is "overwhelming". He added that all views on the topic should be heard, but that the opinions of warming skeptics might not be valid views in his estimation.
He called the skeptics "muddled and confused".
Democrats: "ClimateGate" Leak A Non-Scandal
Cup hands firmly over ears. Say "Lalalalalalala" as loudly as possible
Sooo clever @ Lucianne.com
How GEORGE SOROS is Stealing Elections
American Spectator/The Lid
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing.[The people who count the votes decide everything."] Joseph Stalin It was reminiscent of one of those Halloween or Freddie Kruger Movies. Just when a victim thinks are safe behind a closed door the find out they they have locked themselves in a room with the monster. And that's just what happened to Norm Coleman and the GOP in Minnesota this past election. The "Monster" is Minneapolis Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. Like most Secretary of States, one of Richie's responsibilities is counting a confirming the votes. Richie a former Community Organizer,...
Nike and 'Just Do It' takes on a whole 'nother' meaning.
1st golfer: Is it true Cheetah Woods is playing around?
2nd golfer: Yes, he´s doing 18 holes.
McCain Urges Seniors to Abandon AARP
Sen. John McCain is urging senior citizens to cut up their AARP membership cards and mail the pieces back to the organization, claiming AARP has betrayed them.
Citing AARP's past opposition to proposed cuts in Medicare, McCain expressed dismay Thursday that the senior group has suddenly changed its position to support $460 billion in cuts to the program proposed by Democrats to help pay for health care legislation.
"Shame on AARP," McCain, R-Ariz., said Thursday on the Senate floor. "Take your AARP card, cut it in half and send it back. They've betrayed you."
"If we're talking about Medicare cuts alone as a way of financing health reform, we would fight that with all of our strength," he added. "We've gone as far as we can down that road."
Democrats throughout Thursday's Senate debate used AARP's endorsement of their bill to blunt Republican charges that they are gutting Medicare. AARP rode to the rescue of Democrats on Wednesday, announcing its support for billions in Medicare cuts to help fund the legislation.
As Republicans pressed to restore the cuts, AARP said Democrats merely were recommending elimination of waste and inefficiency within the giant health care program for seniors.
"Most importantly, the legislation does not reduce any guaranteed Medicare benefits," A. Barry Rand, AARP's CEO, said in a letter to senators.
AARP's black CEO Barry Rand was a big Obama campaign contributor. Big surprise here, huh?
AARP has disgraced itself. No senior in his/her right mind could now support this turncoat organization. Disgraceful.
SALEM, Mass. — A sports reporter accused of running a prostitution business in Massachusetts is facing seven new charges, including a witness-intimidation count.
The Salem News reports that Massachusetts prosecutors said in documents filed Thursday that Kevin Provencher told two women who allegedly worked for him as prostitutes that his lawyer would "tear them apart" in the media if they spoke to police.
Provencher was also indicted on six new prostitution-related counts. He was initially arrested in July on two counts of deriving support from a prostitute.
The 51-year-old Provencher worked for the New Hampshire Union Leader for 23 years, but has been suspended.
His lawyer could not immediately be reached. No one answered the phone at her office Friday morning.
8:52 At first I thought it was "PorkChop"
It couldn't have been Pork Chop. Don't you remember the photos. The hooker was signaling that he was the ho.
Some seniors used AARP for hotel discounts, but seniors now angry with AARP say to just ask for the senior discount and the hotels will give it to you. They don’t want any part of the argument of giving discounts in the name of a disgraced front group for an insurance company.
No it couldn’t be “PorkChop”, it says this guy worked for 23 years.
There's no discount that would prompt me to join AARP.
11:47 AM Don't worry, you don't have to any longer. Now they are just putting your name on a card and sending it to you.
***Citing AARP's past opposition to proposed cuts in Medicare, McCain expressed dismay Thursday that the senior group has suddenly changed its position to support $460 billion in cuts to the program proposed by Democrats to help pay for health care legislation.***
ROFL! Talk about hyprocisy! This man has absolutely no shame.
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