BBC:
Iran issues warning over UK crew
An Iranian official has said "serious" measures will be taken against a UK yacht crew if it is proved they had "evil intentions".
The five Britons are being detained by the Iranian navy after the Volvo 60 yacht was stopped on 25 November.
The Foreign Office said Luke Porter, Oliver Smith, David Bloomer, Oliver Young and Sam Usher may have "strayed inadvertently into Iranian waters".
The Team Pindar-backed yacht was sailing from Bahrain to Dubai.
Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie, President Ahmadinejad's head of staff, told Iran's Fars news agency: "Judiciary will decide about the five... naturally our measures will be hard and serious if we find out they had evil intentions."
Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was expecting the Iranians to make a statement later on Tuesday.
He also said he hoped the matter would be resolved "soon" and that there was "no confrontation or argument".
Mr Miliband said: "This is a human story of five young yachtsmen. It's got nothing to do with politics, it's got nothing to do with nuclear enrichment programmes... it has no relationship to any of the other, bigger issues."
He added: "They were going about their sport and it seems they may have strayed inadvertently into Iranian waters."
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) says it believes the five sailors are being held on the island of Sirri. It said it was seeking confirmation of this from the Iranian authorities. The sailors are understood to be safe and well.
The Iranian Ambassador is due to come to the Foreign Office later to meet with the FCO's top civil servant and permanent under secretary, Peter Ricketts.
Dubai-Muscat Offshore Race organisers said the crew of the Kingdom of Bahrain yacht, who were preparing for a race, may have been "drifting" after experiencing propeller problems.
Louay Habib, from the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, told the BBC the shore crew for the boat had said "there was no wind at the time, and they told us that they were organising for a tow to come and get them".
He added: "It's purely speculation but they would have probably been drifting... in 10 hours they could well have strayed into Iranian waters."
David Young, said his 21-year-old son, Oliver, was a "fanatical yachtsman" with a great deal of experience and that he was certain his son would be able to "cope with this very well".
But Charles Porter, of Weston-super-Mare, who is the father of 21-year-old Luke, said he and his wife Beverley were concerned.
He said: "We are holding things together as a family at the moment. I haven't spoken to him since yesterday. He was as good as can be expected."
The fiancee of Sam Usher, 26, Nicola Drayton, said: "It's difficult but you just get on, you have no choice."
Of the remaining two captives, Mr Smith, 31, is an engineer from Southampton and his teammate Mr Bloomer is said to work as a sports broadcaster in Bahrain.
The FCO said the men had been on their way to take part in the Dubai-Muscat race.
The British Embassy in Tehran is demanding the immediate release of the five but has so far only had indirect contact with the crew members.
It is thought the Eid holiday could have delayed proceedings in Iran.
FCO officials have spoken with Iran's ministry of foreign affairs and the Iranian embassy in the UK, while Mr Miliband has asked for a phone conversation with his opposite number in Tehran.
The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall said the FCO had wanted to keep the matter "private" in order to increase the chance of a resolution.
But after five days the details emerged and they had no option but to confirm the story.
Our correspondent said the timing was awkward, coming after the UK condemned Iran's plan to extend its nuclear programme.
The government feared Iran might see the detention as an opportunity for "extra leverage" in relation to the nuclear dispute, she added.
The 360-nautical mile Dubai-Muscat Offshore Sailing Race began on 26 November and ended two days later in the Omani capital's Bandar Al-Rawdah marina.
The Kingdom of Bahrain yacht is owned by the Sail Bahrain project, which aims to promote the island as a yachting destination and was recently launched by Team Pindar.
Team Pindar is owned by G A Pindar & Son Ltd, a family-owned print and publishing business based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
In a statement, Team Pindar confirmed Kingdom of Bahrain was stopped by Iranian navy vessels, as it headed to the start of the race.
It is not the first time British sailors have been detained after being accused of straying into Iranian waters.
In March 2007 there was a prolonged stand-off between the UK and Iran after a 15-strong Royal Navy crew was detained by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
And in 2004, eight British servicemen were held in Iran after being seized in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, where they were training the Iraqi river patrol service.
In both instances, the crews were paraded on television by the Iranian authorities and Bridget Kendall said British diplomats are worried it might happen again in the latest case.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Chuckie Johnson finally admits what we've been saying for quite some time, Letterman style.
Read it at Ace, not linking LGF here.
Comment from Epa:
Just because you are right about one thing does not make you always right, Mr. Johnson, OR SERIOUS.
You were right about islamofascism
You were right about VB/BNP
and then you generalized about people who might have imagined they were useful in fighting islamofascism in the same way racists generalize about ... well .. other races.
Sorry, but you didn't part ways with the right, you completely MISIDENTIFY what the right is.
It is not Alex Jones, OR Lyndon LaRouche, or homophobia, or John Birch any more than some people to my left are simply a deranged Sorosian Bill Moyers who predicted on the afternoon Kerry actually lost, but they all thought he was winning, that the right was going to stage a coup (that's true BTW).
People who cannot deal with the complexities of life - and the myriad choices and spectrum of those who come from either the side which says everything must be shared to achieve justice, or that the fruit of the individual mind and effort IS the source of all justice - generally collapse into the kind of hateful ignorance we have very sadly seen LGF fall into.
And become not even a passing thought.
But thanks for all the fish ...
REPENTHOUSE: Me Love You Long Time!
The secret things belong to the LORD our God,
but the things revealed belong to us
and to our children forever,
that we may follow all the words of this law.
~ Deuteronomy 29
The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables:
"Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: " 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
~ Matthew 13
When you think think you are being paranoid, generally you are not paranoid enough
Iran is not going to build
10-12 new nuclear processing facilities, people ..
THEY ARE BUILT
IBD Editorials:10-12 new nuclear processing facilities, people ..
THEY ARE BUILT
Terror State: A dithering world has for years underestimated the costs of appeasement toward Iran. Tehran's aggressive plans for 10 new nuclear plants show they want dominance, not just a bomb or two.
To any informed observer, it's no surprise that Iran is now collecting its 10-to-1 winnings in the high-stakes game Tehran's Islamofascist government has been playing with the free world for years now.
WRONG ALL WRONG.
They are not going to BUILD 10 new nuke processing facilities.
They ARE built
They ARE operating
It's just that with the discovery of the Qum facility, and the now unarguable fact they are lying, taqiya laden genocidal sons of bitches, they are making sure they can say they TOLD US SO before the rest of these facilities are 'discovered'.
Why on earth do think their attitude, is and has been that the west can't do a damned thing?A Chance For Moderate Swiss Muslims To Prove Me Wrong
With the referendum to ban minarets passing with 57% of the population in favor of it, the whole of the West has gone crazy.
"What are Muslims going to think?", "How can we do this to Muslims? Muslims are not going to be happy about this." "We are Europeans and this is against European values." Blah blah blah.
What about the responsibility of Muslims as citizens of Switzerland? Why is everyone so bent on making Muslims happy? How about Muslims compromise for a change?
These Muslims say they are citizens of Switzerland and so should be given equal rights (which they are). Now, because they are citizens of Switzerland, technically, they are Europeans and as Europeans they should respect the decision of the majority of the people in that country.
This is the time for Muslims in Switzerland to prove that they are Swiss and have European values, that they have assimilated. Muslims have a chance here to prove it loud and clear that they are moderate Muslims who have come to Europe to become Europeans and not to make Europe Muslim. Muslims need to shut up and accept this democratic decision. Muslims have to prove that their loyalty is to Europe and European idea of democracy, rather than to the long dead and awaited Islamic caliphate and Shariah law.
My eyes are on Muslims. Let's see how they react to this. They can prove me wrong this time by just shutting up and accepting this decision respectfully. I think they are going to make a fuss about it. I think they will complain. I think they will whine but if they don't then I will accept that there are moderate Muslims that we can count on while we fight Islamic terrorism. Right now, I think there isn't a single Muslim that I would be able to trust.
I hope they change my opinion. I am not very confident about it though.
"What are Muslims going to think?", "How can we do this to Muslims? Muslims are not going to be happy about this." "We are Europeans and this is against European values." Blah blah blah.
What about the responsibility of Muslims as citizens of Switzerland? Why is everyone so bent on making Muslims happy? How about Muslims compromise for a change?
These Muslims say they are citizens of Switzerland and so should be given equal rights (which they are). Now, because they are citizens of Switzerland, technically, they are Europeans and as Europeans they should respect the decision of the majority of the people in that country.
This is the time for Muslims in Switzerland to prove that they are Swiss and have European values, that they have assimilated. Muslims have a chance here to prove it loud and clear that they are moderate Muslims who have come to Europe to become Europeans and not to make Europe Muslim. Muslims need to shut up and accept this democratic decision. Muslims have to prove that their loyalty is to Europe and European idea of democracy, rather than to the long dead and awaited Islamic caliphate and Shariah law.
My eyes are on Muslims. Let's see how they react to this. They can prove me wrong this time by just shutting up and accepting this decision respectfully. I think they are going to make a fuss about it. I think they will complain. I think they will whine but if they don't then I will accept that there are moderate Muslims that we can count on while we fight Islamic terrorism. Right now, I think there isn't a single Muslim that I would be able to trust.
I hope they change my opinion. I am not very confident about it though.
"The U.S has made some progress with the Chinese and the Indians Over the Past Couple of Weeks
The Chinese and the Indians would beg to differ. As would Brazilians and South Africans. Maybe they believe the emails. . .
(someone better tell Gibbs before he looks even stupider. . .)
India Times:
Copenhagen conference: India, China plan joint exit
Saibal Dasgupta, TNN 28 November 2009
BEIJING: In an unprecedented move, India on Saturday joined China and two other developing countries to prepare for a major offensive on rich nations at the Copenhagen conference on climate change next month.
The four countries, which include Brazil and South Africa, agreed to a strategy that involves jointly walking out of the conference if the developed nations try to force their own terms on the developing world, Jairam Ramesh, the Indian minister for environment and forests (independent charge), said.
“We will not exit in isolation. We will co-ordinate our exit if any of our non-negotiable terms is violated. Our entry and exit will be collective,” Ramesh told reporters in Beijing.
The move comes after reports suggested that rich nations led by Denmark are trying to set the agenda of the conference by presenting a draft containing a set of specific proposals.
The BASIC countries-Brazil, South Africa, India and China- decided to throw the gauntlet at rich nations by coming up with a counter-draft that will be presented at the conference. They agreed to let China, which initiated the exercise, to present the draft of the developing nations at Copenhagen.
“This BASIC draft fully meets India’s goals and aspirations. We hope it is made the basis of discussions at the conference,” Ramesh said.
The draft, which was originally prepared by China, was finalized after some changes during a 7-hour long meeting of BASIC countries-Brazil, South Africa, India and China besides Sudan as the chair of G-77.
This joint front forged on Saturday is a major political initiative -- the first major India-China accord on international affairs--that is likely to impact not just the dimension of the talks on climate change but international diplomacy as a whole. The move comes after recent discussions on climate change held with Indian and Chinese leaders by US president Barack Obama, who appears to have made little impact on them.
Denmark is expected to unveil its draft to a group of select countries that includes the United States, several European nations, India and China on December 1. It will be later presented at the conference. Around the same time, the BASIC nations plan to circulate their own counter-draft in order to influence the course of negotiations.
The four nations issued a joint press release, which made it clear the developed nations should be ready to contribute funds and share green technology if they expected the developing and poor nations to take major actions on environmental protection.
The four countries and the chair of G-77 said they were keen to make a “contribution towards a consensus in Copenhagen”.
The release said: “We are in agreement on major issues including those relating to the establishment of a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, as well as shared vision for long term cooperative action on climate change, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation to the impact of climate change, and the provision of finance and technology to support and enable these actions, taking into account the special needs of the least developed countries, the small island developing states and African countries.”
The United States, which refused to endorse the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, might find it difficult to handle the new onslaught mounted by four developing nations including India and China. They are demanding an extension of the Kyoto Protocol.
In fact, there are serious questions on whether US president Barack Obama will keep his promise of attending the Copenhagen conference on climate change next month to avoid pressures to accept a “second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol”. Obama recently met both Chinese leaders and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in order to soften the stance of developing nations and avoid exactly the kind of situation that is now emerging.
Besides the elements of the Kyoto Protocol, there are “significant new features” in the draft proposal worked out by BASIC countries-Brazil, South Africa, India and China-at a meeting here on Saturday, Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for environment and forest said.
These countries have decided not to allow rich nations to make climate change an excuse to set up trade barriers or resort to trade protectionism. Rich countries should be ready to contribute funds for stopping the process of forest degradation including the one in Amazon valley in Brazil and also invest in the process of creating new forests.
The developing nations will also not accept any pressure from developed countries to establish legally binding emission targets at Copenhagen. Developing countries want to be allowed to reduce emissions voluntarily and take what they consider to be “nationally appropriate actions” he said.
Ramesh said India will under no circumstances accept the concept of a peaking year under which each country will have to indicate on what date they will reach the highest level of pollution before beginning to come down.
India will also not accept any unsupported mitigation actions without any effort by developed countries to provide funds and technology support to improve environment in developing nations.
New Delhi has also set its face against any international measurement, reporting and verification of the work done in India for environment protection.
The Indian minister said that China, Brazil and South Africa were also in agreement on these issues.
(someone better tell Gibbs before he looks even stupider. . .)
India Times:
Copenhagen conference: India, China plan joint exit
Saibal Dasgupta, TNN 28 November 2009
BEIJING: In an unprecedented move, India on Saturday joined China and two other developing countries to prepare for a major offensive on rich nations at the Copenhagen conference on climate change next month.
The four countries, which include Brazil and South Africa, agreed to a strategy that involves jointly walking out of the conference if the developed nations try to force their own terms on the developing world, Jairam Ramesh, the Indian minister for environment and forests (independent charge), said.
“We will not exit in isolation. We will co-ordinate our exit if any of our non-negotiable terms is violated. Our entry and exit will be collective,” Ramesh told reporters in Beijing.
The move comes after reports suggested that rich nations led by Denmark are trying to set the agenda of the conference by presenting a draft containing a set of specific proposals.
The BASIC countries-Brazil, South Africa, India and China- decided to throw the gauntlet at rich nations by coming up with a counter-draft that will be presented at the conference. They agreed to let China, which initiated the exercise, to present the draft of the developing nations at Copenhagen.
“This BASIC draft fully meets India’s goals and aspirations. We hope it is made the basis of discussions at the conference,” Ramesh said.
The draft, which was originally prepared by China, was finalized after some changes during a 7-hour long meeting of BASIC countries-Brazil, South Africa, India and China besides Sudan as the chair of G-77.
This joint front forged on Saturday is a major political initiative -- the first major India-China accord on international affairs--that is likely to impact not just the dimension of the talks on climate change but international diplomacy as a whole. The move comes after recent discussions on climate change held with Indian and Chinese leaders by US president Barack Obama, who appears to have made little impact on them.
Denmark is expected to unveil its draft to a group of select countries that includes the United States, several European nations, India and China on December 1. It will be later presented at the conference. Around the same time, the BASIC nations plan to circulate their own counter-draft in order to influence the course of negotiations.
The four nations issued a joint press release, which made it clear the developed nations should be ready to contribute funds and share green technology if they expected the developing and poor nations to take major actions on environmental protection.
The four countries and the chair of G-77 said they were keen to make a “contribution towards a consensus in Copenhagen”.
The release said: “We are in agreement on major issues including those relating to the establishment of a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, as well as shared vision for long term cooperative action on climate change, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation to the impact of climate change, and the provision of finance and technology to support and enable these actions, taking into account the special needs of the least developed countries, the small island developing states and African countries.”
The United States, which refused to endorse the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, might find it difficult to handle the new onslaught mounted by four developing nations including India and China. They are demanding an extension of the Kyoto Protocol.
In fact, there are serious questions on whether US president Barack Obama will keep his promise of attending the Copenhagen conference on climate change next month to avoid pressures to accept a “second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol”. Obama recently met both Chinese leaders and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in order to soften the stance of developing nations and avoid exactly the kind of situation that is now emerging.
Besides the elements of the Kyoto Protocol, there are “significant new features” in the draft proposal worked out by BASIC countries-Brazil, South Africa, India and China-at a meeting here on Saturday, Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for environment and forest said.
These countries have decided not to allow rich nations to make climate change an excuse to set up trade barriers or resort to trade protectionism. Rich countries should be ready to contribute funds for stopping the process of forest degradation including the one in Amazon valley in Brazil and also invest in the process of creating new forests.
The developing nations will also not accept any pressure from developed countries to establish legally binding emission targets at Copenhagen. Developing countries want to be allowed to reduce emissions voluntarily and take what they consider to be “nationally appropriate actions” he said.
Ramesh said India will under no circumstances accept the concept of a peaking year under which each country will have to indicate on what date they will reach the highest level of pollution before beginning to come down.
India will also not accept any unsupported mitigation actions without any effort by developed countries to provide funds and technology support to improve environment in developing nations.
New Delhi has also set its face against any international measurement, reporting and verification of the work done in India for environment protection.
The Indian minister said that China, Brazil and South Africa were also in agreement on these issues.
Obama The Incredible Enigma
I wonder if Cass Sunstein will be angry with me for posting this:
SOME WILL BLINDLY REFUTE ALL OF THIS, OTHERS MAY REFUTE SOME OF THIS, BUT MANY WILL SAY, "HOW IN THE HELL DID THIS MAN GET ELECTED?" WHY ARE THERE STILL SO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS?
Barack Obama is less of a person than an image - a Brand. People see whatever they want as they do on a Rorschach test. But does anyone really know him?
(HAVE CUT 3 LINES and placed them at the end of this list - L)In fact, he is....,A man whose childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, spied on U.S. military installations in Hawaii for the Soviet Union, edited a communist newspaper, authored pornographic novels, and wrote poetry in praise of Joseph Stalin.A man mentored by and still supported by radical Muslims.A man who promised transparency in government, but has spent over a million dollars in legal fees hiding information that would determine his eligibility to be President.A former drug user.A man whose academic records are sealed from kindergarten through law school.A man who arrived in New York in June of 1981 without enough money to get a hotel room, but one month later flew to Indonesia and Pakistan .Why did he go?Who paid his expenses?A man who traveled to Pakistan when it was illegal for U.S. citizens to do so.So what country's passport did he use?A man whose Law School Admission Test scores and grades at Columbia University are known to have been mediocre, but was admitted to Harvard Law School through the intervention of a Saudi named Khalid al-Mansour.A law review editor who never published an article in any law review.A lawyer with no significant accomplishments in the law and no reputation in the legal community.A former State and U.S. Senator, who never authored a piece of legislation.A disciple of the Marxist Saul Alinsky.A product of the Chicago political machine, the most corrupt political organization in America .A man who selects Marxists, corrupt politicians, and criminals as his close political associates and personal friends.A man whose presidential candidacy was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, the Socialist International, and the Workers International League.A man lauded for the literary brilliance of two memoirs, both of which were ghostwritten by others.A so-called Christian who says that knowing when human life begins is above his pay-grade, but somehow knows that abortion is permissible at any stage.A man who thinks waterboarding is immoral, but partial-birth abortion is moral.A man who publicly laments slavery in America, which was abolished 150 years ago, but praises Islam, which still practices both slavery and the sexual mutilation of young girls.A man who speaks endlessly about helping the less fortunate, but gives almost none of his sizeable income to charity - not even to his half-brother, who is living in squalor in Kenya.A man who had the most left-wing voting record in the United State Senate, but was predicted by the press to govern from the middle.A man who has never created a job, met a payroll, or even operated a lemonade stand, but wants to tell Detroit how to make cars.A President who has never before served as an executive in either the private or the public sector.A Commander-in-Chief who doesnt know how to shoot a rifle, throw a hand-grenade, drive a tank, fly a plane, or steer a ship.A Commander-in-Chief who has publicly divulged some of our nations most important intelligence secrets.A man who has been put in charge of the largest economic engine ever existed, but has never invested in the stock market and admits total ignorance of it.A President who says science will guide his administration, but has no education in the sciences.A man who is proficient in reading what is written for him on a teleprompter, but jerks and stammers his way through any off-the-cuff speaking.A man whose health records are sealed from childhood to the present day.A man whose educational records are sealed from childhood through law school.A man who spent 20 years in a church whose pastor espouses Marxist Liberation Theology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Semitism, but claims he never heard his pastor utter anti-American or anti-Semitic statements.A man who added more to the National Debt in 100 days than all other Presidents did in the past 220 years, yet feels qualified to lecture Americans about fiscal responsibility.A man who publicly expressed disdain for the U.S. Constitution on a Chicago radio station because it limited the governments ability to redistribute wealth.The first American President to bow before a foreign head of state - a Muslim dictator.A man who sits and listens submissively while his country is castigated by Daniel Ortega, a Communist thug whose own daughter accused him of raping her.A narcissist who gave the Queen of England a present from the United States --an iPod containing recordings of his own speeches.A so-called Christian who officially declared Pride Month for a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.A man who wanted Americans to ignore his Muslim name during his election campaign, yet boasts of his Muslim name when he travels to Muslim countries.A man who can name hundreds of America's shortcomings, yet none of its great accomplishments.A President who claims the moral high ground by closing Gitmo yet supports the transfer of terror suspects to countries where horrific torture is certain.A President who scoffed at being called a socialist yet acted to nationalize the auto industry, the banking industry, and the insurance industry . . . and now seeks to nationalize the healthcare industry.A President who violates private property rights, the sanctity of contracts, and the rule of law - three essential principles that go back over a thousand years in the Common Law tradition.A man who promised 95% of all Americans a tax cut, but is increasing taxes on 100% of the population through inflation - the cruelest tax of all.A lawyer who represented ACORN, an organization now indicted in several states for voter fraud, whose stated goal is to get as many people on welfare as possible in order to destroy our financial system.A President who cheated GMs bondholders by giving their property to the UAW in a political payoff.An American President who frequently criticizes his own country when speaking in foreign countries, but never praises America's generosity, goodness or greatness.A President whose Secretary of the Treasury cheated on his taxes, as did several other appointees and advisors.A President who, despite the current federal debt of 100 trillion dollars, wants to add the greatest debt ever by nationalizing healthcare.A President who scoffs at being calleda socialist, yet has appointed 28 Czars with more to be appointed to circumvent constitutional government, including: A Science Czar who has advocated compulsory abortions for American women and the surrender of Sovereignty to a comprehensive Planetary Regime.A self-professed Communist as his Green Jobs Czar.A Pay Czar to regulate the pay of corporate executives.A President who swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, yet has nominated a domestic enemy of the Constitution to the Supreme Court.A President whose Homeland Security Chief classified pro-lifers, veterans, and supporters of traditional marriage as terrorists.A President who stood silent while the Iranian government hacked unarmed protestors to death with axes, because it was an internal matter, but freely offers his opinions about the internal affairs of Israel and Honduras .A President who decreed true acts of terrorism must now be described as man-made disasters.A President who cracks hurtful jokes about Special Olympians.A President who refused to intercept or inspect a North Korean ship virtually certain to be carrying Weapons of Mass Destruction to Burma .A President who wants to cancel all missile defenses while rogue nations are developing long-range ballistic missiles.An American President who blames the violence in Mexico on America .A Commander in Chief who claims to have been unaware that Air Force One was taken on a terrifying, low-level photo-op over Manhattan..A President who berates American CEOs for flying in private planes at private expense on company business, but whose wife spends hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars flying to Paris for a shopping spree. (Note: the Dems in Congress are in the process of passing a bill to purchase a number of private jets for the exclusive use of its members.)A President who promised a transparent administration, but requires all questions be screened before impromptu appearances.A man who freely admitted his energy policies are designed to bankrupt the American coal industry.A President who has presided over the loss of 14.7 million jobs and whose energy policy will cause the loss of another 1 million jobs.A President whose energy policy will increase the average Americans utility bills by over $2,000 a year in the middle of the Great Recession.A man about whom Liberal journalist Tom Brokaw said, There's a lot about him We Don't Know?....... just one week before the election.The vast majority of Americans Do Not Know who he is, but SOMEONE Surely Does.Someone paid for his travel expenses to Pakistan and Indonesia.Someone engineered legal challenges to all of his election opponents for the State Senate and had them disqualified.Someone straightened and leveled his path to the U.S. Senate when a Democrat Judge made public the child custody records of his Republican opponent. When he was a candidate for the U.S. Senate,Someone arranged for him to speak at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.Someone saw to it that all of his records were sealed, both at home and abroad.Someone assembled the massive organization for his run for the Presidency.Someone knows all about him.Who??
OBAMA WOULD NOT HAVE FREED THE SLAVES
An interesting perspective from Judith Klinghofer:
In Afghanistan, a Just War I argue that the war in Afghanistan, like the Civil War and the Second World War, is bound to remain a case of just war not because of the reasons it was fought but because of it's consequences, the freeing of Afghan women. True, Afghan women, like freed American slaves and Freed Jews before them, have a long way to go. But there can be little doubt that their liberation has begun and a return of the Taliban would put them back in shackles. Consider this exchange on "This Week:"
ROBERTS: And I think that he, therefore, he has to deliver on Afghanistan. And I also think that one of the things that he can explain is that the difference that it will make for women and girls in Afghanistan if we leave is devastating. (CROSSTALK)STEPHANOPOULOS: I got to say, I bet that's one thing he's not going to do. He might give a glancing blow to it. I think he's going to try to say all we can do is stabilize that country. We can't create, as Secretary Gates has said, a Valhalla in Afghanistan.
ROBERTS: No, of course not. But people in this country were very excited when they saw those girls going to school for the first time in years, and all of that. And the sense that America was doing something good in the world, which we are all over the world, but a lot of people don't realize that. And the idea that those people would just be locked up again and repressed is something to make a case for.
This was not the first time Roberts tried to raise the Afghan women's issue nor the first time George Stephanopoulos dismissed her concerns as naive. In this he merely reflects the determination of the Obama administration to ignore this moral dimension of the War in Afghanistan forces one to conclude that had he been living in the eighteen sixties, he would have sided with realist Stephen Douglas and not with idealist Abe Lincoln.
In other words, he would not have freed the slaves. Instead, he would have used his considerable rhetorical powers to convince the country that the Southerners have the right to live according to their unique set of values and it is wrong of the "imperfect" Yankees to force their own notions of morality on them.
I am delighted that some women's groups decided to speak out. I wish Laura Bush joined them as, unlike Michelle Obama and her vegetable gardens, she has been active in the cause of Afghan women. Hillary, as always, tows the line of the men for whom she works. I do not like the Afghan war but permitting the re-enslaving of Afghan women is too awful a prospect to contemplate. Yet, by dithering as the British correctly pointed out he effectively undermined public support for the war and by asserting an exclusive national security reason for the war and ignoring it's moral aspect sought to make the abandonment of Afghan women palatable.
No, he is no Lincoln!
Dumb: AFP Quotes Jihadi Group Behind Mumbai Massacre Lashkar-e-Taiba on Swiss Minaret Ban. Seriously Retarded: Terror Group Decries Ban as Blow for "Inter-Faith Harmony"....
Is it possible that Agency French Press doesn't know that Lashkar e-Taiba is a terrorist group? If they don't know, can they really call themselves Journalists?
Click on the title and go read the whole thing.
White House Insists Anthropogenic Global Warming Is Still Settled ... So There
Damn reality, full speed ahead.
From Professor of Meteorology, at Massachusettes Institute of Technology, Richard Lindzen:
THE CLIMATE SCIENCE IS NOT SETTLED
From Professor of Meteorology, at Massachusettes Institute of Technology, Richard Lindzen:
THE CLIMATE SCIENCE IS NOT SETTLED
Is there a reason to be alarmed by the prospect of global warming? Consider that the measurement used, the globally averaged temperature anomaly (GATA), is always changing. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes down, and occasionally—such as for the last dozen years or so—it does little that can be discerned.
Claims that climate change is accelerating are bizarre. There is general support for the assertion that GATA has increased about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the middle of the 19th century. The quality of the data is poor, though, and because the changes are small, it is easy to nudge such data a few tenths of a degree in any direction. Several of the emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have caused such a public ruckus dealt with how to do this so as to maximize apparent changes.
The general support for warming is based not so much on the quality of the data, but rather on the fact that there was a little ice age from about the 15th to the 19th century. Thus it is not surprising that temperatures should increase as we emerged from this episode. At the same time that we were emerging from the little ice age, the industrial era began, and this was accompanied by increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2, methane and nitrous oxide. CO2 is the most prominent of these, and it is again generally accepted that it has increased by about 30%.
Getty ImagesThe defining characteristic of a greenhouse gas is that it is relatively transparent to visible light from the sun but can absorb portions of thermal radiation. In general, the earth balances the incoming solar radiation by emitting thermal radiation, and the presence of greenhouse substances inhibits cooling by thermal radiation and leads to some warming.
That said, the main greenhouse substances in the earth's atmosphere are water vapor and high clouds. Let's refer to these as major greenhouse substances to distinguish them from the anthropogenic minor substances. Even a doubling of CO2 would only upset the original balance between incoming and outgoing radiation by about 2%. This is essentially what is called "climate forcing."
There is general agreement on the above findings. At this point there is no basis for alarm regardless of whether any relation between the observed warming and the observed increase in minor greenhouse gases can be established. Nevertheless, the most publicized claims of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deal exactly with whether any relation can be discerned. The failure of the attempts to link the two over the past 20 years bespeaks the weakness of any case for concern.
The IPCC's Scientific Assessments generally consist of about 1,000 pages of text. The Summary for Policymakers is 20 pages. It is, of course, impossible to accurately summarize the 1,000-page assessment in just 20 pages; at the very least, nuances and caveats have to be omitted. However, it has been my experience that even the summary is hardly ever looked at. Rather, the whole report tends to be characterized by a single iconic claim.
The main statement publicized after the last IPCC Scientific Assessment two years ago was that it was likely that most of the warming since 1957 (a point of anomalous cold) was due to man. This claim was based on the weak argument that the current models used by the IPCC couldn't reproduce the warming from about 1978 to 1998 without some forcing, and that the only forcing that they could think of was man. Even this argument assumes that these models adequately deal with natural internal variability—that is, such naturally occurring cycles as El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, etc.
Yet articles from major modeling centers acknowledged that the failure of these models to anticipate the absence of warming for the past dozen years was due to the failure of these models to account for this natural internal variability. Thus even the basis for the weak IPCC argument for anthropogenic climate change was shown to be false.
Of course, none of the articles stressed this. Rather they emphasized that according to models modified to account for the natural internal variability, warming would resume—in 2009, 2013 and 2030, respectively.
But even if the IPCC's iconic statement were correct, it still would not be cause for alarm. After all we are still talking about tenths of a degree for over 75% of the climate forcing associated with a doubling of CO2. The potential (and only the potential) for alarm enters with the issue of climate sensitivity—which refers to the change that a doubling of CO2 will produce in GATA. It is generally accepted that a doubling of CO2 will only produce a change of about two degrees Fahrenheit if all else is held constant. This is unlikely to be much to worry about.
Yet current climate models predict much higher sensitivities. They do so because in these models, the main greenhouse substances (water vapor and clouds) act to amplify anything that CO2 does. This is referred to as positive feedback. But as the IPCC notes, clouds continue to be a source of major uncertainty in current models. Since clouds and water vapor are intimately related, the IPCC claim that they are more confident about water vapor is quite implausible.
There is some evidence of a positive feedback effect for water vapor in cloud-free regions, but a major part of any water-vapor feedback would have to acknowledge that cloud-free areas are always changing, and this remains an unknown. At this point, few scientists would argue that the science is settled. In particular, the question remains as to whether water vapor and clouds have positive or negative feedbacks.
The notion that the earth's climate is dominated by positive feedbacks is intuitively implausible, and the history of the earth's climate offers some guidance on this matter. About 2.5 billion years ago, the sun was 20%-30% less bright than now (compare this with the 2% perturbation that a doubling of CO2 would produce), and yet the evidence is that the oceans were unfrozen at the time, and that temperatures might not have been very different from today's. Carl Sagan in the 1970s referred to this as the "Early Faint Sun Paradox."
For more than 30 years there have been attempts to resolve the paradox with greenhouse gases. Some have suggested CO2—but the amount needed was thousands of times greater than present levels and incompatible with geological evidence. Methane also proved unlikely. It turns out that increased thin cirrus cloud coverage in the tropics readily resolves the paradox—but only if the clouds constitute a negative feedback. In present terms this means that they would diminish rather than enhance the impact of CO2.
There are quite a few papers in the literature that also point to the absence of positive feedbacks. The implied low sensitivity is entirely compatible with the small warming that has been observed. So how do models with high sensitivity manage to simulate the currently small response to a forcing that is almost as large as a doubling of CO2? Jeff Kiehl notes in a 2007 article from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the models use another quantity that the IPCC lists as poorly known (namely aerosols) to arbitrarily cancel as much greenhouse warming as needed to match the data, with each model choosing a different degree of cancellation according to the sensitivity of that model.
What does all this have to do with climate catastrophe? The answer brings us to a scandal that is, in my opinion, considerably greater than that implied in the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit (though perhaps not as bad as their destruction of raw data): namely the suggestion that the very existence of warming or of the greenhouse effect is tantamount to catastrophe. This is the grossest of "bait and switch" scams. It is only such a scam that lends importance to the machinations in the emails designed to nudge temperatures a few tenths of a degree.
The notion that complex climate "catastrophes" are simply a matter of the response of a single number, GATA, to a single forcing, CO2 (or solar forcing for that matter), represents a gigantic step backward in the science of climate. Many disasters associated with warming are simply normal occurrences whose existence is falsely claimed to be evidence of warming. And all these examples involve phenomena that are dependent on the confluence of many factors.
Our perceptions of nature are similarly dragged back centuries so that the normal occasional occurrences of open water in summer over the North Pole, droughts, floods, hurricanes, sea-level variations, etc. are all taken as omens, portending doom due to our sinful ways (as epitomized by our carbon footprint). All of these phenomena depend on the confluence of multiple factors as well.
Consider the following example. Suppose that I leave a box on the floor, and my wife trips on it, falling against my son, who is carrying a carton of eggs, which then fall and break. Our present approach to emissions would be analogous to deciding that the best way to prevent the breakage of eggs would be to outlaw leaving boxes on the floor. The chief difference is that in the case of atmospheric CO2 and climate catastrophe, the chain of inference is longer and less plausible than in my example.
Document Reveals UN's Goal of Becoming Global Rule-Maker for Environmental Laws, Says "Environmentalism Should be Regarded on the Same Level With Religion"
(Fox News)- Environmentalism should be regarded on the same level with religion "as the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity," according to a paper written two years ago to influence the future strategy of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the world's would-be environmental watchdog.
The purpose of the paper, put together after an unpublicized day-long session in Switzerland by some of the world's top environmental bureaucrats: to argue for a new and unprecedented effort to move environmental concerns to "the center of political and economic decision-making" around the world — and perhaps not coincidentally, expand the influence and reach of UNEP
The Green Economy Initiative, also called the Global Green New Deal, is a major counterpart to the new treaty on greenhouse gas suppression that all branches of the United Nations, and a horde of environmental organizations, are lobbying loudly to bring to agreement at the environmental summit in Copenhagen.
The ambitious paper, entitled "The UNEP That We Want," was the product of a select group of 20 top environmental bureaucrats and thinkers, including UNEP's current No. 2 official, Angela Cropper. The document was later delivered to UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.
Other participants included Janos Pasztor, currently head of the team pushing U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's unprecedented Seal the Deal lobbying campaign to pressure U.N. member governments into signing a new environmental agreement at Copenhagen; Julia Marton-Lefevre head of the World Conservation Union; Dominic Waughray, currently head of environmental initiatives at the World Economic Forum; and Maria Ivanova, a Bulgarian academic who is director of the Global Economic Governance Project at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy.
....The report was "very well received" by UNEP's hierarchy, according to Halle, and "it has had a great impact internally." He added, "I have participated in several discussions and presentations of the ideas."
Go read the whole thing at Weasel Zippers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)