Deleted

clipped from planetgore.nationalreview.com The latest hit to climate-change credibility comes via an embarrassing revelation from Ben Santer, one of the lead authors of the 1995 U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I report, which is one of the holy documents of global-warming theology. Mr. Santer admitted that he deleted sections of the document that stated that humans were not responsible for climate change.

Are Those Flowers On The Table For Me?

clipped from moneyrunner.blogspot.com Jiabao: Are those flowers on the table for me? Obama: What? Jiabao: I said, are those flowers on the table for me? Obama: I don't understand. Why would I bring you flowers? Jiabao: Because I like to be brought flowers when someone is trying to have sex with me!

Unless That State Is Nebraska

clipped from biggovernment.com We’ll be blunt. The ‘health care reform’ legislation under consideration in the Senate is the most corrupt piece of legislation in our nation’s history. Yes, we understand that is a strong statement and there have been other abominations throughout our nation’s life. But never before did corrupt legislation threaten to radically and forever change the live’s of every American. Exhibit A is the outright bribe extracted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Corn Huckster State) from Sen. Harry Reid. As a result of Nelson’s performance in his role of Hamlet in the health care deliberations, we will have two health care systems in this country; one for Nebraska and one for the other 49 states. States will be forced to either raise taxes or cut other services to accommodate the forced increase in Medicaid spending. Unless that state is Nebraska.

Incomplete

clipped from www.miskatonic.org In 1931, the Czech-born mathematician Kurt Gödel demonstrated that within any given branch of mathematics, there would always be some propositions that couldn't be proven either true or false using the rules and axioms ... of that mathematical branch itself. You might be able to prove every conceivable statement about numbers within a system by going outside the system in order to come up with new rules and axioms, but by doing so you'll only create a larger system with its own unprovable statements. The implication is that all logical system of any complexity are, by definition, incomplete; each of them contains, at any given time, more true statements than it can possibly prove according to its own defining set of rules.

Rented

clipped from douthat.blogs.nytimes.com I’ve been looking for an opportunity to discuss Tim Carney’s new book, “Obamanomics,” which takes on the nexus between big government and big business, and Keith Olbermann’s recent claim that “corporations, by definition, lean to the right,” gives me the chance. Here’s Carney’s rejoinder: Let’s start with Olbermann’s employer, a corporation called General Electric. By what measure does GE “lean to the right”? Not by campaign contributions, I’ll tell you that. That doesn’t mean they should be pinned with the label “liberal,” either, and it’s one of the strengths of Carney’s book — which is less partisan than its title suggests — that he doesn’t make that claim. His argument isn’t that G.E. (or Pfizer, or Chevron, or Goldman Sachs) has a liberal agenda, necessarily; it’s that corporations have a rent-seeking agenda, and the rents in the age of Obama are very rich indeed.

Soilent Green

clipped from pajamasmedia.com All of this begs the central issue, which is the impending doom of the regime in Tehran.  The mullahs tried to stage monster rallies in support of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei today, but it fizzled.  This is a remarkable failure, as demonstrators were promised free food and a cash stipend.  They preferred to stay at home, and save their energies for the anti-regime rallies that will take place in coming weeks. Despite his verbal support for the opposition in his Oslo remarks, the president still balks at doing anything serious to help them.  He is carefully, cautiously and systematically constructing a shameful legacy for himself and his administration.  He’d do better to listen to Vaclav Havel on how to deal with tyrants: “…they respect it when someone is standing his ground, when someone is not afraid of them. When someone soils his pants prematurely, then they do not respect you more for it.”

The Fall

clipped from www.shanghaidaily.com IT is getting harder for governments to buy United States Treasuries because the US's shrinking current-account gap is reducing supply of dollars overseas, a Chinese central bank official said yesterday. The comments by Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, referred to the overall situation globally, not specifically to China, the biggest foreign holder of US government bonds. Chinese officials generally are very careful about commenting on the dollar and Treasuries, given that so much of its US$2.3 trillion reserves are tied to their value, and markets always watch any such comments closely for signs of any shift in how it manages its assets. In a discussion on the global role of the dollar, Zhu told an academic audience that it was inevitable that the dollar would continue to fall in value because Washington continued to issue more Treasuries to finance its deficit spending.

Does It?

clipped from www.qando.net Although the professional “spinners” are at work trying to shape what happened – or more precisely, didn’t happen – in Copenhagen as a success, I think the chief negotiator for the 130 countries that comprise the G77 characterized it best (and brutally honestly): Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, said the deal had “the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It’s nothing short of climate change scepticism in action. It locks countries into a cycle of poverty for ever. Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush.” The last line is classic. It comes on the heels of Hugo Chavez noting that Obama had just recently accepted the Nobel Peace prize at the same time he was sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to, in his words, “kill more innocents”. Neither remark characterizes well the supposed renewed reputation (and love) of the US that Obama has claimed to have reestablished, does it?

Not that I don't wish the failure was even greater.

COTD: Missing Them

clipped from www.moonbattery.com When he looks up his head automatically pivots to where the TelePrompTer would be. Notice how he alternates between the missing prompters. Posted by: ccs at December 18, 2009 10:28 AM

Bird Thing

clipped from www.moonbattery.com Oh, sweet smokin' Gaia, this is painful to watch. Ace recommends for maximum comedic effect, mute the sound and watch PBO give his neck muscles the workout of a lifetime. "I come here today not to talk, but to act." Specifically, he came to act like one of those glass drinking bird things.

COTD: B prus Reprise

clipped from hotair.com B prus. mankai on December 18, 2009 at 9:16 AM Man I bet the left is steaming. Obama has had several chances to destroy the United States and has failed so far to do it. darwin on December 18, 2009 at 9:16 AM Now President Obama should realize that the only supporters he has is the one he wears when dribbling around a BBall Court and when posing with his court, nose held high. The amount of supporters that approve of him and his policies could all fit into the boarders of either the State of Illinois or Minnesota. Maybe that’s what we really need to do, round em up and import/deport them to Illinois or Minnesota, so we can reduce our carbon footprint chasing them all over the world. MSGTAS on December 18, 2009 at 9:16 AM I bet the Chinese miss Bush too. darwin on December 18, 2009 at 9:16 AM Well it is good to see China still cares about America! xler8bmw on December 18, 2009 at 9:14 AM We owe them money. Robert_Paulson on December 18, 2009 at 9:18 AM

COTD(s): B prus

clipped from hotair.com As a commenter at Ace’s said (I paraphrase): who would have thought that the capitalist Chinese and nationalist Russians would have to save American citizens from their own fascist government? PimFortuynsGhost on December 18, 2009 at 9:00 AM Hu’s the communist? BPD on December 18, 2009 at 8:59 AM China is red Obama is blue Guess who’s the communist Obama or Hu darwin on December 18, 2009 at 9:07 AM Stimulous–EPIC FAIL Jobs created/saved–EPIC FAIL Crap and Trade–EPIC FAIL Iran–EPIC FAIL Russia–EPIC FAIL Middle-east solution–EPIC FAIL Olympics in Chicago–EPIC FAIL Climate Change Conference–EPIC FAIL Healthcare Bill–EPIC FAIL How does a report card consisting of all “F”’s become a grade of B+??? Guess the One thinks he should get extra credit because these are “accelerated classes”, or something…. lovingmyUSA on December 18, 2009 at 9:12 AM B prus. mankai on December 18, 2009 at 9:16 AM

COTD: Twice

clipped from hotair.com Let me get this straight…. China loans money to the US. Obama spends China’s loaned money like there is no tomorrow. Obama chides China for not showing up and helping out lesser fortunate countries through “carbon aid”…but states how the US is ready to help. Wouldn’t China already be paying for the US share of that aid through the loans that the US will inevitably default on due to the overwhelming debt load this administration and congress has saddled our country with? Why would China pay twice? frankenisnotmysenator on December 18, 2009 at 9:39 AM

Here Comes Mother

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Now that the Medicare expansion has been stripped from the Democrats' health care legislation, we would do well to focus on the Medicaid expansion. The legislation would expand eligibility for Medicaid to those whose income equals 133 percent or less of the poverty level. According to Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, this would add roughly 15 million people to the program. In his state, the increase could be as high as 50 percent. Where will the money for the expansion come from? Not from the federal government. If the feds were to foot the bill, this would explode the pretense that the legislation is "revenue neutral." To keep up that pretense, the bill would leave the states to pay for the expansion after the first three years. Gov. Barbour estimates the size of that bill at $25 billion. Call it the mother of all unfunded mandates. Most states face balanced budget laws. So unlike the feds, they cannot borrow from the Chinese or from anyone else.

Just In Case

clipped from www.dailymail.co.uk A group of 'undersea archaeologists' have become the latest to claim they have uncovered the lost city of Atlantis. The scientists - who have refused to identify themselves - have released a series of images taken beneath the Caribbean. They insist the snaps show what appear to be the ruins of a city that could pre-date Egypt's pyramids, which appeared after 2600BC. They even told a French newspaper that one of the structures appears to be a pyramid. Now the anonymous group wants to raise funds to explore the secret location where the images were taken. They would not reveal the exact location, however, saying only that it was somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. The claims have raised eyebrows on the internet, though sceptics refrained from debunking them entirely - just in case. The legend of Atlantis, a city of astonishing wealth, knowledge and power that sank beneath the ocean waves, has fascinated millions.

COTD: Spiral Bingo: Yep. By One Of Kero Or Rapp's Friends No Doubt (Bumped; Scroll Down For Newer Posts)

clipped from hotair.com Yesterday I read at a blog that most amazing pic (used on every blog now, including here) was taken by an amateur photographer. It is a timelapsed light/aperature-adjusted photo to cover every aspect of the whole event in one shot. One incredibly perfect shot. In other words they had to set up their camera POV and settings in order to capture the whole event well in advance. In other words, they had to know in advance what was gonna happen when and where. Hmmmm. Coronagold on December 10, 2009 at 10:15 PM

I kept looking at that picture and wondering how that happened. Solution found.

UPDATE (12/11/09): Turns out not to be so! I investigated more and had some email correspondence with the experimental scientist who was actually running the EISCAT system at the time of the spiral (actually, his experiment started 10 minutes after the spiral). His name is Antti Kero (from Finland; and has a co-experimenter named Markus Rapp from Germany). It turns out that Antti was as surprised as anyone about what happened.

EISCAT does have the capabilities to launch rockets as part of their experiments with the antenna arrays and atmospheric "heater" array. But there were no rockets used in Antti's experiment. And he says that EISCAT can't generate any visuals that the naked eye can see. So it turns out that a failed Russian missile launch was a "deer in the headlights" for all the world to watch. They were just more interested in believing in an alien invasion!

So the picture was the work of some combination of luck and skill after all!

COTDY: Not Sure

clipped from justoneminute.typepad.com are now predicting a collapse of the US government in three years due to financial mismanagement. Not sure we'll make it that long. Denninger Posted by: Pofarmer | December 15, 2009 at 01:32 PM

Schuckin And A Freezin'

clipped from pajamasmedia.com The Politico and Roger Simon (who is in Copenhagen) depict a scene of chaos and division that the management can do little to hide. Politico hints that some politicians are beginning to sense that the heretofore unsinkable ship is down by bow and foundering and are, with stealthy tread, making for the First-Class lifeboats. Roger Simon relates a telling anecdote of streets crowded by hangers-on and empty power lunches. Oops, did I say power? Basically, it’s a combination of a trade fair for eco products that are being flogged everywhere (I’m staying in a CO2 neutral hotel – you can see it on PJTV), third world operators looking for hand-outs (a couple of African scientists admitted to one of the skeptic scientists they knew AGW was a schuck, but it was a great oppo to get some cash) and leftover, re-upped hippies doing what they do — demonstrate and carry-on….

Code Green

clipped from pajamasmedia.com The FT reports that Iranian industry is at 40% of capacity.  Student demonstrations are ongoing.  Stories abound concerning army and air force officers promising to side with the people if the regime does not cease its brutality.  (I believe these stories, as does Afshin Ellian).   The regime conjurs up a video purporting to show demonstrators burning a photo of Khomeini, and then arrests the “guilty.” Most Iranians seem to think it was a regime deception to justify further violence against students and their friends and (incredibly) relatives. For about 48 hours Twitter has carried warnings that the regime is about to arrest the opposition leaders, but it has not happened, thereby suggesting regime indecisiveness.  And the country is headed into a period of religious celebrations, when there will be lots of people in the streets. And now Obama’s said that we support the dissidents.  So far it’s only words.  Will he finally do something?  Unlikely, but life is full of surprises…

O PR

clipped from www.americanthinker.com Is anyone else as puzzled as I am by the new stock photo of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? It could hardly be more different from the hairy chested view of him taken upon his apprehension. I'm referring to the photo that appeared at the same time that the New York trial was announced, portraying him in traditional Arab dress. The picture is odd in a number of respects. For one thing, it's extraordinarily ambiguous. While KSM appears to be trying to look ferocious, the robes, wide-eyed expression, and cocked head all work to give him a distinctly feminine air. The picture fairly reeks of the homoeroticism that Christopher Hitchens, among others, has detected in the Jihadi subculture. This picture was apparently taken while KSM was in American custody, processed with American acquiescence, and released with American permission. It's exactly as if we were acting as KSM's PR firm, hired to make him look as imposing as possible. The trial hasn't even started yet. It's going to be a long process.

Heh

clipped from wattsupwiththat.com China has told participants in the UN climate change talks that it sees no possibility of reaching an operational accord this week, an official involved in the Copenhagen talks says. The official, who asked not to be identified by name, told Reuters that the Chinese had suggested instead issuing “a short political declaration of some sort”. The statement from the world’s biggest polluter comes less than 24 hours before most world leaders are due to join the climate change talks in Copenhagen, where ministers and negotiators have made only modest progress at best. Talks have been stalled by a widening rift between developing nations and the developed world.

I guess they're just in the pocket of Exxon, huh?

Da, Tampered

clipped from blogs.telegraph.co.uk Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages. Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (Hat Tip: Richard North) A discussion of the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as “Climategate,” continues against the backdrop of the abortive UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) discussing alternative agreements to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that aimed to combat global warming. the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

Crooks

clipped from pajamasmedia.com When the story broke, Justice Department spokesman Tracy Schmaler said that Hanes was a “political appointee” at Justice: In June, Hanes became the acting deputy administrator for policy in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The curious fact about that revelation is that this particular position has in the past been a career slot, not a political position. . . . In other words, the girlfriend of Senator Baucus has been placed in a position usually occupied by a career civil-service employee in what the Justice Department’s spokesman acknowledged was a “political appointment.” So is the DOJ inspector general — who was quite active during the prior administration — going to investigate this obvious political abuse of the civil-service rules? Don’t hold your breath. It’s like they’re all a bunch of crooks or something.

Dog Catching

clipped from www.realclearpolitics.com Surely the tragically uninformed among us could use some perspective on these innocuous comments by Trenberth: "We can't account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can't"; "we are (not) close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter." Trenberth, lead author of the 1995, 2001 and 2007 assessments of climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtains approximately 95 percent of his funding through the federal government, via the National Science Foundation. Well, soon after my request was fired off, I was informed by NCAR's counsel that the organization is, in fact, not a federal agency -- because its budget is laundered through the National Science Foundation -- and thus is under no obligation to provide information to the public. taxpayers should be able to hold government-funded scientific institutions to the same level of accountability to which they hold their local dog pounds.

The SGS View

clipped from www.shadowstats.com Have you ever wondered why the CPI, GDP and employment numbers run counter to your personal and business experiences?  The problem lies in biased and often-manipulated government reporting. The SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

Faith Based

clipped from feministlawprofessors.com The contempt laden Op-Ed is here. Below is the first paragraph: In his inaugural address, Barack Obama promised to restore science to its “rightful place.” This has partly occurred, as evidenced by this month’s release of 13 new human embryonic stem-cell lines. The recent brouhaha over the guidelines put forth by the government task force on breast-cancer screening, however, illustrates how tricky it can be to deliver on this promise. So right out of the box author John Allen Paulos rhetorically links the G.W. Bush era right wing “Christianity” driven opposition to stem cell research with concerns about the new mammogram guidelines. But that noxious opener is completely unfair. Women did not start scheduling mammograms for dubious religious reasons. We did it because SCIENTISTS CONVINCED US IT WOULD BE BENEFICIAL – scientists at places like the Centers For Disease Control. So did organizations like the American Cancer Society, which last time I checked was not “faith based.”

DiHydrogen Monoxide Reprise

clipped from www.youtube.com

Charge!, Not Change

clipped from newzeal.blogspot.com

Understanding

clipped from cafehayek.com Former Miami Herald employee Robert Steinback, pleading for greater government control of health-care markets, writes: “I don’t understand people who fear government bureaucrats – who have no profit motive and ultimately must answer to the people – yet feel fully at ease with corporate bureaucrats whose sole interest is the bottom line and answer only to shareholders” (”Matter of life, death,” Dec. 9). I wonder how Mr. Steinback would reply to a proposal that newspapers be run, not by profit-seeking owners, but by government bureaucrats.

Interesting Features

clipped from statpad.wordpress.com In his blog post, Giorgio Gilestro claims to show that the adjustments made by GHCN to temperature data do not induce  artificial trends into the data based mainly on this histogram of adjustments. Finally, these averages were again averaged over the stations to calculate an average for each year.: The graph has some interesting features.  First of all, there is a fairly linear trend from about 1900 to the present.  The increase is about  0.25o.  A second unexpected feature was the fact that there seems to be a fairly constant reduction of 0.10o C from about 1990 to 2006!  The expression “hiding the decline” comes to mind and I believe this would need some sort of explanation. Since posting this yesterday, I have become aware of a post doing a similar analysis   by blogger hpx83.  His results are basically the same as the ones I have posted.  However, using further information about  the stations, he has also included a graph of the number of stations available in a given year:

The Highest Level

clipped from pajamasmedia.com CONFLICTS OF INTEREST at the IPCC? “Seek and ye will find. Our friendly part-time chairman of the IPCC, Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, is quite a remarkable man. As well as his onerous post with the UN’s IPCC, it seems he has a considerable number of other interests. . . . Intriguingly, for such an upstanding public servant though, he is also a strategic advisor to the private equity investment firm Pegasus Capital Advisors LP In December 2007, be became a member of the Senior Advisory Board of Siderian ventures based in San Francisco. It acquired a minority interest in January 2009 in order to ‘explore new business opportunities in the area of sustainability.’ As a member of the Senior Advisory Board of Siderian, Dr Pachauri is expected to provide the Fund and its portfolio companies ‘with access, standing and industry exposure at the highest level.’” Access at the highest level, indeed.

Octopods

clipped from news.nationalgeographic.com Octopuses have been discovered tip-toeing with coconut-shell halves suctioned to their undersides, then reassembling the halves and disappearing inside for protection or deception, a new study says. "We were blown away," said biologist Mark Norman of discovering the octopus behavior off Indonesia. "It was hard not to laugh underwater and flood your [scuba] mask." "An octopus without shells can swim away much faster by jet propulsion," he said. "But on endless mud seafloor, where are you fleeing to?" In other words, a coconut-carrying octopus may be slow, but it's always got somewhere to hide. That the octopuses weren't using their tools to rustle up dinner only added to Stanford's surprise. "Even chimps," he added, "do not use natural materials to create shelters over their heads."

Another Lie

clipped from www.nytimes.com President Obama’s “60 Minutes” interview Sunday night eviscerating Wall Street laid down the not-so-welcome mat. “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers,” he said.