Hope and Change on Healthcare

Do you still have the candidate you'd hoped for? Or did things change?

More Climategate

It looks like the only thing man-made (anthropogenic) about climate change is the hysteria.

Via James Delingpole at the Telegraph:

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 incident involved an e-mail server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, East England. Unknown persons stole and anonymously disseminated thousands of e-mails and other documents dealing with the global-warming issue made over the course of 13 years.

Controversy arose after various allegations were made including that climate scientists colluded to withhold scientific evidence and manipulated data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is.

Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, 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.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.

On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.

IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.

The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass. The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.

Global-temperature data will have to be modified if similar climate-date procedures have been used from other national data because the calculations used by COP15 analysts, including financial calculations, are based on HadCRUT research.

What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.

As Richard North says: This is serial.

UPDATE: As Steve McIntyre reports at ClimateAudit, it has long been suspected that the CRU had been playing especially fast and loose with Russian – more particularly Siberian – temperature records. Here from March 2004, is an email from Phil Jones to Michael Mann.

Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it
wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either
appears
I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.
Cheers
Phil

And here at Watts Up With That is a guest post by Jeff Id of the Air Vent

And here is what one of the commenters has to say about the way the data has been cherry-picked and skewed for political ends:

The crux of the argument is that the CRU cherry picked data following the same methods that have been done everywhere else. They ignored data covering 40% of Russia and chose data that showed a warming trend over statistically preferable alternatives when available. They ignored completeness of data, preferred urban data, strongly preferred data from stations that relocated, ignored length of data set.

One the final page, there is a chart that shows that CRU’s selective use of 25% of the data created 0.64C more warming than simply using all of the raw data would have done. The complete set of data show 1.4C rise since 1860, the CRU set shows 2.06C rise over the same period.

Not, of course, dear readers that I’m in any way tempted to crow about these latest revelations. After all, so many of my colleagues, junior and senior, have been backing me on this one to the hilt….

Oh, if anyone speaks Russian, here’s the full report.

Anybody remember this oldie but goodie:

Help for the Climategate guys

Shamelessly ganked from Bore Patch.

Global Warming farfromproven

fahrfromprovin fahrfromproven farfromprovin climategate

Anybody remember those old Fahrvergnügen commercials?

They spawned a whole industry of cheap t-shirts of German-sounding neologisms:

Fahrfrompoopin - constipated

Fahrfromthinkin - an idiot

Fahrfrompukin - partying

Fahrfromnewgen - old/used

You get the picture. Anyway, I've been thinking of a new word to describe the fiasco over the fake science & data manipulation that has been at the heart of the global warming scam. Here's what I've come up with: FARFROMPROVEN


It's time to face the facts. Anthropogenic global warming isn't science...it's a religion for people with a deficient apocalyptic.

Advent gives us a chance to look at the coming King who will truly baptize the world with Fire, and find Him while he still presents himself in the vulnerability of the incarnation.

Competitive Vulnerability

Novelist Sara Maitland coined the term “competitive vulnerability” to describe those who believe their pain must be bigger than that of others so that they achieve a moral high-ground or greater voice or more grievances to be redressed.

There's a problem here - especially for people that are working to be pastors: If all I'm looking for in your hurt is to see your bet and raise it, I'm looking at it the wrong way. Sadly, this is all too often the tactic taken in church disagreements.

Abraham Maslow once said, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. " Mainline seminaries have sold out to the "oppression / patriarchy / issues" ticket, and are creating ordinands that are incapable of reflecting on ethical, theological, biblical, or political issues outside of that framework. And the people (parishioners & clergy) are poorer for it.

I Hate to Say I Told You So

But I told you so. Now the AU (arrogant Unitarians?) has its collective panties in a wad over the signing of the Manhattan Declaration.

At a press conference today, Religious Right leaders and Roman Catholic bishops unveiled a joint statement criticizing laws that allow reproductive choice and same-sex marriage.

Hmm...Roman Catholics acting catholic? That is news! I really wish AU could get their story straight.

Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “This declaration is certain to be deeply divisive. These religious leaders want to see their doctrines imposed by force of law, and that goes against everything America stands for.

“I am optimistic that the people in the pews will not heed their leaders’ misguided call to action,” Lynn said. “Polls show that most church-goers do not want to see their faith politicized. But I am also well aware that religious leaders have vast lobbying power that cannot be ignored.”

Aww...I preferred it when they were saying that the Roman Catholics only wanted to stop helping people at all!

Lynn noted the House version of health-care reform was revised at the behest of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to curtail women’s access to abortion.

So which is it, AU? Should they have stayed out of politics altogether (when they energized their base to lobby for universal health-care)? Or is it only when they bring to their political activism who they are as people of faith?

Obama's Hypocrisy on Censorship

President Obama began his visit to China with an exhortation to free up censorship and allow the citizenry to question and criticize their government without fear of reprisal.

President Barack Obama pointedly nudged China on Monday to stop censoring Internet access, offering an animated defense of the tool that helped him win the White House and suggesting Beijing need not fear a little criticism.

Yeah. Ask Fox News how well Obama takes a little criticism. Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, was interviewed last month and said: “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.” (Source: NYT)

It was a delicately balanced message and Obama couched his admonitions with words calling for cooperation, heavy with praise and American humility.

Our country needs to apologize to China? When did that happen? We've stood up for their freedom for 70 years! And our economies energize each other, raising the standard of living for both countries.

"I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable," Obama told students during his first-ever trip to China. "They can begin to think for themselves."

I'm in a conundrum. I have no idea which government snitch line I should report this to. - should I report this quote to fishy@whitehouse.gov or flag@whitehouse.gov? I just can't decide which one best holds the populace accountable to the government. OOOPS! I meant that the government is accountable to the people.

AU Trifecta

And again with AU. Now they say Rome can't talk about marriage.

“I am amazed that church officials would threaten to stop helping the disadvantaged because they are being asked to treat all citizens of the District fairly,” he continued. “They seem to have lost all perspective. How strong is their commitment to helping the poor if they’re willing to take this hardline stance?

It seems that everybody is required to take a break from any opinions that religious persons may have, but religious people don't have the same right of reprieve?

I think the "REV" in "Rev. Barry Lynn" stands for revisionista.

AU Speaks

So they want us to keep the church from advocating for conscience bound issues in healthcare, but it's okay for the Roman Church to lobby for healthcare in general? GIVE ME A BREAK!

Keep Religious Doctrine Out of the Law | Americans United

Jail Time If You Don't Buy Health Insurance

Wow. There is now proof that the 1098 page bill (which none of these starry-eyed legislators have actually read) contains a provision to SEND YOU TO JAIL IF YOU DON'T BUY HEALTH INSURANCE.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."

What is this? Does anybody remember the STAMP ACT??? Let's not lose sight of the fact that Congress has no constitutional authority to make us buy their program. Government intervention is one of the biggest aggravating factors in this crisis, and more government intervention is not going to help.

The current health care disaster in America is not simply a problem of people refusing to buy health insurance; it's an issue of people not being able to afford to buy health insurance. When the annual insurance premium for a family of four is something above $13,000, that's a terrible financial burden that many Americans simply can't afford to pay -- especially when so many people have lost their jobs due to the faltering economy. Worse, the government says that health insurance companies can't compete across state lines for your business (and we all know that the best way to reign in costs while maintaining quality, is through market competition).

The brutal facts of the matter are inescapable: The American people are too broke to buy their own health insurance, and the American government is too broke to buy it for them. The whole nation is going bankrupt over runaway health care COSTS. Any measure claiming to be healthcare reform that does nothing to address the COSTS is completely bogus.

Still Waiting

AIM recently reported that "Catholic Bishops Help Pass Pelosicare."

On Saturday, after Catholic lobbyists had finalized a deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most prominent Catholic in the U.S. Government, the Politico reported that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had "delivered a critical endorsement" to Pelosi "by signing off on late-night agreement to grant a vote on an amendment barring insurance companies that participate in the exchange from covering abortions."

The Hill newspaper reported that Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) had been trying to broker a deal and appealed to the Catholic Bishops. "I would like the [U.S. Conference of Catholic] Bishops, who as I understand it want a bill, to help us work out a plan where we don't have winners and losers," Waxman was quoted as saying. "Because the losers will make us lose the bill and the winners won't have won anything."

NBC's Doug Adams reported that the Catholic Bishops were "lobbying hard."

The shocking turn of events once again demonstrates the extreme left-wing drift of the Catholic Church, which is the nation's largest religious denomination with 67 million members and run by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. But their role in passing Pelosicare is not the only evidence of such a turn. The Bishops poured more than $7.3 million of parishioners' money into the corrupt left-wing organization ACORN over the last decade before publicity over the organization's scandals forced suspension of the funding.

Anybody taking bets on whether or not Barry Lynn and the folks at Americans United for Separation of Church & State are going to sue? Or is their defamation only when they also politically oppose the "meddling"?

How to Win the Nobel Peace Prize In 12 Days

Cartoon source

I can hardly believe it took them that long. He'd already written an autobiography at 30...surely he already knew how great he was, right? After nominating Hitler and Tookie the Cop-Killah, and actually awarding this prize to Yassir (strap-a-bomb-to-a-kid) Arafat, I can hardly see how this award has any credibility left.

Editor's Note: Although President Obama had only been in office for 12 days before the nominations for this year's Nobel Peace prize closed the entire process actually takes a full year. According to the official Nobel Prize Web site invitation letters are sent out in September. Every year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee sends out thousands of letters inviting a qualified and select number of people to submit their nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. The deadline to submit nominations is February 1. -- Two hundred five names were submitted for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, 33 of which are organizations. A short list of nominees is prepared in February and March. The short list is subject to adviser review from March until August. At the beginning of October, the Nobel Committee chooses the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates through a majority vote. The decision is final and without appeal. The names of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates are then announced."

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning. Over the last decade the only requirement to win the prize was that the nominee had to be critical of George W. Bush (see Al Gore, Mohamed El Baradei and Jimmy Carter).

President Obama has broken new ground here. Nominations for potential winners of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ended on February 1. The president took office only 12 days earlier on January 20.

Let’s take a look at the president’s first 12 days in the White House according to his public schedule to see what he did to deserve a Nobel Peace Prize:

January 20: Sworn in as president. Went to a parade. Partied.

January 21: Asked bureaucrats to re-write guidelines for information requests. Held an “open house” party at the White House.

January 22: Signed Executive Orders: Executive Branch workers to take ethics pledge; re-affirmed Army Field Manual techniques for interrogations; expressed desire to close Gitmo (how’s that working out?)

January 23: Ordered the release of federal funding to pay for abortions in foreign countries. Lunch with Joe Biden; met with Tim Geithner.

January 24: Budget meeting with economic team.

January 25: Skipped church.

January 26: Gave speech about jobs and energy. Met with Hillary Clinton. Attended Geithner's swearing in ceremony.

January 27: Met with Republicans. Spoke at a clock tower in Ohio.

January 28: Economic meetings in the morning, met with Defense secretary in the afternoon.

January 29: Signed Ledbetter Bill overturning Supreme Court decision on lawsuits over wages. Party in the State Room. Met with Biden.

January 30: Met economic advisers. Gave speech on Middle Class Working Families Task Force. Met with senior enlisted military officials.

January 31: Took the day off.

February 1: Skipped church. Threw a Super Bowl party.

So there you have it. The short path to the Nobel Peace Prize: Party, go to meetings, skip church, release federal funding to pay for abortions in foreign countries, party some more.

Good grief.

Read more Tommy De Seno at www.JustifiedRight.com.

h/t Bp. Chuck

UNINSURED

Some quarters are screaming because "44,789 Americans die every year because they have no health insurance."

How humanitarian of them.

Now, since that's 1/30th the number of Americans every year who are murdered in the womb, can we get some perspective on the moral opprobrium?

PSA - Paid Socialist Actors?

Public Option PSA

Who's looking out for you?

Bush I investigated for speaking to students

When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings

By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
09/08/09 7:11 AM EDT

The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.

Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president's school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit. "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.

With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"

Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. "The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC," Ford began. "As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event."

Unfortunately for Ford, the General Accounting Office concluded that the Bush administration had not acted improperly. "The speech itself and the use of the department's funds to support it, including the cost of the production contract, appear to be legal," the GAO wrote in a letter to Chairman Ford. "The speech also does not appear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda."

That didn't stop Democratic allies from taking their own shots at Bush. The National Education Association denounced the speech, saying it "cannot endorse a president who spends $26,000 of taxpayers' money on a staged media event at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. -- while cutting school lunch funds for our neediest youngsters."

Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush's speech itself, like Obama's today, was entirely unremarkable. "Block out the kids who think it's not cool to be smart," the president told students. "If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now, when they're stuck in a dead end job. Don't let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams.

R/T from Washington Examiner

Scottish Common Sense Realism

Craig Ferguson deserves an honorary doctorate for this.If you can't see the video, visit the original post.

Translation Tarnation

Zondervan has finally done it. They reneged on their promise to leave the NIV text alone, and are updating the TNIV (written with an ideological bent towards gender-neutral language) to become the new NIV by 2011. You can believe that it's going to be even better at obscuring biblical doctrine than the TNIV was.

Haven't we been through this before?

Lord, hasten the day when the ESV receives wide recognition among your Anglican children (now that it also has the Apocrypha).

Southern Baptist Seminary Library Hosts Book Burning

I'm friends with several of the library staff at SBTS. One of them let me know about a small fire there this morning. (Smoke damage, but thanks to God and two fire engines, not much else.)

Anyway, knowing the slant taken by my own seminary and the MSM (especially the local Louisville Courier-Journal), I thought the title would be used as a headline within the next 24 hours.

Romans 1 in action

Many thanks to ChannelAte.

Where's American's United when you really need them?

Hawaii's state senate has declared September 24, 2009 "ISLAM DAY." You know...for tolerance's sake.


Why they didn't choose a Friday (I hear September 11th was open), I don't know.

What else I don't know is where are the indignant letters from "the Rev. Barry W. Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State."

Maybe his arms are just too tired from giving President Obama bear hugs for snubbing the National Day of Prayer.

Nah...he's just against Christianity having a public footprint. Kinda reminds me of these guys.

Way to go, numpty Mr. Lynn.

Stick to lawyering and leave the "reverend-ing" to those of us who bend both knees to Jesus alone.