Wednesday, May 26, 2010

DEMOCRATS BLAME GEORGE BUSH FOR THE OIL SPILL

Chris Dodd video as the blather spreads

May 25, 2010 |  hey, it's worked before. If you watch no other video today, you gotta watch this one.
Don Imus on the Fox Business Network Tuesday interviewing jolly old Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who was forced into retirement by the certainty of defeat this November.
Like pretty much everyone else on the planet except the makers of oil dispersant, Dodd is 110% very safely opposed to the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He's also appalled.
As is the Obama White House.
Actually what the White House is appalled over is that the fingers of blame are starting to turn toward the Obama White House, the Oval Office to be exact.
Not that the White House has the technology either to address an oil spill of this magnitude and oceanic depth.
The Obama administration can't do anything about it, except lay on the PR. But the president wants to spend Memorial Day weekend in Chicago.
And how would that look enjoying Hyde Park and maybe yet more golf or a Sox game while one of the nation's worst environmental disasters gushes unabated down south?
So to assuage that anticipated criticism, the White House has quickly laid on a Friday presidential trip back down to Louisiana, his second. He didn't see a drop of oil during the first one. But it looks good on TV. (See Related Items links below the video.)
Chris Dodd has been in the U.S. Senate now for five six-year terms and might have been looking into drilling safety precautions instead of special mortgage deals. So he too is eager to spread blame elsewhere.
You'll never guess which recent Republican president Dodd tries to finger for last month's underwater blowout.
You'll get a good chuckle out of Imus' incredulous response starting around the 1:20 mark.
:

IS OBAMA IN TROUBLE??

Sestak White House scandal called 'impeachable offense'

'It's Valerie Plame, only bigger, a high crime and misdemeanor'

By Drew Zahn
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
If a Democratic member of Congress is to be believed, there's someone in the Obama administration who has committed a crime – and if the president knew about it, analysts say it could be grounds for impeachment.
"This scandal could be enormous," said Dick Morris, a former White House adviser to President Bill Clinton, on the Fox News Sean Hannity show last night. "It's Valerie Plame only 10 times bigger, because it's illegal and Joe Sestak is either lying or the White House committed a crime.
"Obviously, the offer of a significant job in the White House could not be made unless it was by Rahm Emanuel or cleared with Rahm Emanuel," he said. If the job offer was high enough that it also had Obama's apppoval, "that is a high crime and misdemeanor."
"In other words, an impeachable offense?" Hannity asked.
Aaron Klein's exposé of Barack Obama's notorious connections with extremists and America-haters is scorching the best-seller lists. Order your autographed copy of "The Manchurian President" today.
"Absolutely," said Morris.
The controversy revolves around an oft-repeated statement by Rep. Sestak, D-Pa., that he had been offered a job by the Obama administration in exchange for dropping out of the senatorial primary against Obama supporter Sen. Arlen Specter.
(Sestak said he refused the offer. He continued in the Senate primary and defeated Specter for the Democratic nomination.
But Karl Rove, longtime White House adviser to President George W. Bush, said the charge is explosive because of federal law.
"This is a pretty extraordinary charge: 'They tried to bribe me out of the race by offering me a job,'" he said on Greta Van Susteran's "On the Record" program on the Fox News Channel. "Look, that's a violation of the federal code: 18 USC 600 says that a federal official cannot promise employment, a job in the federal government, in return for a political act.
"Somebody violated the law. If Sestak is telling the truth, somebody violated the law," Rove said. "Section 18 USC 211 says you cannot accept anything of value in return for hiring somebody. Well, arguably, providing a clear path to the nomination for a fellow Democrat is something of value.
He continued, citing a third law passage: "18 USC 595, which prohibits a federal official from interfering with the nomination or election for office. ... 'If you'll get out, we'll appoint you to a federal office,' – that's a violation of the law."
Staffers with Sestak's congressional office did not respond to WND requests for comment. But the congressman repeatedly confirmed that he was offered the position and refused and that any further comments would have to come from someone else.
"I've said all I'm going to say on the matter. … Others need to explain whatever their role might be," Sestak said on CNN this week. "I have a personal accountability; I should have for my role in the matter, which I talked about. Beyond that, I'll let others talk about their role."
That's not fulfilling his responsibilities, Rove said. He said Sestak needs to be forthcoming with the full story so "the American people can figure out whether or not he's participating in a criminal cover-up along with federal officials."
The Obama White House has tried to minimize the issue.
"Lawyers in the White House and others have looked into conversations that were had with Congressman Sestak, and nothing inappropriate happened," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has stated.
Gibbs told the White House press corps, "Whatever conversations have been had are not problematic."
And on CBS' "Face the Nation" he said, "I'm not going to get further into what the conversations were. People who looked into them assure me they weren't inappropriate in any way."
But the administration also is taking no chances on what might be discovered.
According to Politico, the Justice Department has rejected a request from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., for a special counsel to investigate and reveal the truth of the controversy.
The report said Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich confirmed no special counsel would be needed. But the report said Weich also gave no indication that the Justice Department actually was looking into the claims by Sestak.
"We assure you that the Department of Justice takes very seriously allegations of criminal conduct by public officials. All such matters are reviewed carefully by career prosecutors and law enforcement agents, and appropriate action, if warranted, is taken," Weich wrote in the letter.
Issa had suggested that the alleged job offer may run afoul of federal bribery statutes.
He said in a statement to Politico, "The attorney general's refusal to take action in the face of such felonious allegations undermines any claim to transparency and integrity that this administration asserts."
He's also made a decision to raise the profile of his concerns.
"The bottom line is all fingers are being pointed back to the White House," he said in a statement released as ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
"This Chicago-style politicking is an assault on our democracy and is downright criminal. President Obama faces a critical choice – he can either live up to his rhetoric of transparency and accountability by disclosing who inside his White House tried to manipulate an election by bribing a U.S. Congressman or he can allow his administration to continue this stonewalling and relinquish the mantle of change and transparency he is so fond of speaking on."
Issa suggested, "Could the reason why Congressman Joe Sestak refuses to name names is because the very people who tried to bribe him are now his benefactors? For months, Sestak has repeatedly said without equivocation that the White House illegally offered him a federal job in exchange for dropping out of the race. Was Joe Sestak embellishing what really happened, or does he have first-hand knowledge of the White House breaking the law? If what he said is the truth, Joe Sestak has a moral imperative to come forward and expose who within the Obama Administration tried to bribe him."
Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee chairman, as well as Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, have joined the chorus suggesting the White House needs to answer some questions.
Former judge Andrew Napolitano, an analyst for Fox News, said the level of the offer simply isn't an issue.
"It wouldn't matter if it was a job as a janitor. Offering him anything of value to get him to leave a political race is a felony, punishable by five years in jail," he said.
The Section 600 statute states:
Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment, position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit, provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in connection with any general or special election to any political office, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
Douglas Sosnik, the White House political director for Bill Clinton, said offering jobs to political friends is "business as usual," but said Obama's promise was that "business as usual" wouldn't continue in his White House.
"It cuts against the Obama brand," he told the New York Times.
Ron Kaufman, who served under the first President Bush, also told the newspaper such offers are not unusual.
"But here's the difference – the times have changed and the ethics have changed and the scrutiny has changed. This is the kind of thing people across America are mad about," Kaufman said.
WND previously reported on the Sestak controvesy and a similar one concerning a Democrat Senate candidate in Colorado, Andrew Romanoff.
The Denver Post said Jim Messina, Obama's deputy chief of staff and "a storied fixer in the White House political shop, suggested a place for Romanoff might be found in the administration and offered specific suggestions."
Romanoff at the time was challenging another major Obama supporter, Sen. Michael Bennet, for the Democratic primary for the Senate seat from Colorado. He has since won top-line position over Bennet in a coming primary.
The report said Romanoff turned down the overture, but it is "the kind of hardball tactics that have come to mark the White House's willingness to shape key races across the country, in this case trying to remove a threat to a vulnerable senator by presenting his opponent a choice of silver or lead."
The newspaper affirmed "several top Colorado Democrats" described the situation, even though White House spokesman Adam Abrams said, "Mr. Romanoff was never offered a position within the administration."
Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation, who has been monitoring the Obama administration, told WND the offer of reward for some government official's actions raises questions of legal liability.
"There's a federal statute and federal law seems to make clear if you offer a government official some sort of remuneration, directly or indirectly, it's a crime," he said.

Monday, May 17, 2010

THERE GOES THE INTERNET

Video > Uncovered Audio: Obama Czar Pushes Plan for Legally Controlling Internet Info



Uncovered Audio: Obama Czar Pushes Plan for Legally Controlling Internet Info


DERELICTION OF DUTY.. HAWKING HEALTHCARE AND IGNORING UNEMPLOYMENT AND WAR

Obama’s Dereliction of Duty
Posted By Matt Patterson
Jobs must be our No. 1 focus in 2010. — Barack Obama [1], January 27, 2010.
So much for all that.
After a year of crisscrossing the country hawking his health care boondoggle, President Obama in his State of the Union address graciously took note of a separate, minor problem — America’s continued mass unemployment [2].
Obama’s first year in office saw the economy bleed millions of jobs and bottom out at the lowest labor force participation rate in 25 years. The official unemployment rate for December was 10 percent, a scary but misleadingly sunny number which failed to take into account the millions of Americans forced into part-time work or those who left the job market altogether in frustration and disgust.
Naturally, such dismal statistics got fair media play as 2009 wound to a close. So the president paid lip service to the jobs situation when he addressed Congress in January, 2010, promising to buckle down and concentrate on getting Americans back to work in the coming year. A lot of Americans, a lot of jobless Americans, likely gave a sigh of relief and uttered a hearty “it’s about time.”
Unfortunately for them, what came instead was a renewed frenzy to pass nationalized health care, and a corresponding neglect of the still dismal unemployment situation. The last weeks have seen 1) the release at last of the president’s own health care plan, 2) a much ballyhooed but still farcical health care summit, and 3) yet another public presidential plea (yawn) for the necessity of national health care. And now Obama is reportedly gearing up for yet another health care tour as his allies in Congress prepare to make their final push to pass this misbegotten legislation by Easter.
Meanwhile, millions of Americans continue to fill the unemployment lines or take menial work in order to have something on their resume besides a year-long gap of eating Cheetos and playing Guitar Hero. One can only conclude that Obama does not care whether you have a job or not, so long as he can force government health care down your throat.
And it’s not just the unemployed that Obama seems cool towards. American soldiers are now engaged in some of the fiercest fighting of the Afghanistan war, and sixty six have perished in that theater in the first months of 2010 alone. But you would never know it from Obama, who last gave a major speech on the Afghan war on December 1. As commander-in-chief, he seems oddly and disturbingly detached from the struggles of our sons and daughters in Mesopotamia and Asia.
And then there is our nation’s increasingly desperate fiscal situation. Record high levels of deficit and debt are sucking capital out of the economy, depressing the dollar, and threatening our ability to meet our global military commitments and domestic obligations. Obama’s solution, to the extent that he has one, is to add yet another trillion dollar entitlement to the federal books. That’s like fighting a fire with buckets of gasoline. Any firefighter who even suggested such an insane strategy would (no pun intended) be fired; sadly, our chief executive has job security until at least 2012.
Some would suggest that this all adds up to an astounding dereliction of duty, fed by megalomania and fealty to long discredited and dangerous ideologies. The more cynical may even see deliberate neglect, as Americans in desperate financial situations may be more likely to acquiesce to an engorged and gorging government. After all, in a nation where employment is often tied to health insurance, a jobless man is a man at least open to a government alternative.
I cannot bring myself to believe that any president would manipulate the economy in such a manner for his own political purposes. But I do know this: while Obama continues to fiddle his atonal health care tune, the flames of war and recession and fiscal collapse rage all around him.
Does he care? Does he even understand the precipice upon which we stand?
In even the best of times, history would judge Obama harshly for pushing such radical change without broad public and bipartisan support. That he dares ignore both the people’s wishes (that he abandon his health care fetish) and their most dire need (jobs) will assure him history’s most severe reprobation. To his hard-left liberal contingent, he may one day seem a noble failure.
To everyone else, there will be no such magnanimous modifier.
——————————————————————————–


THE POLITICS OF GLOBAL WARMING

Remarks delivered at the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change
Written By: John H. Sununu
Publication date: 03/10/2009
Publisher: The Heartland Institute


We have gathered here to bring some reality and sound science into the ongoing global debate on climate change and global warming. I certainly am pleased to join this very distinguished assembly of experts who have come here to confirm that the “debate on the science is not over.”

Another Rush to Judgment
This is a very significant event because it will give focus to the false underpinnings of the current international “rush to judgment” and the calls for implementation of drastic policies to deal with this rashly proclaimed “crisis.” My message today is to make sure we recognize that no matter how effectively we deal with exposing the errors and games behind that agenda, we need to know the battle will never end, because it’s not really about global warming.
The global warming crisis is just the latest surrogate for an over-arching agenda of anti-growth and anti-development. This agenda grew and gathered support in the years following World War II.
One of the first issues to be celebrated as a crisis by these reformers was over-population. That fad peaked in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. The bible of that cult, “The Population Bomb,” argued that “... the battle to feed all of humanity is over” and claimed we had lost the battle, claiming “ ... in the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death.”
This clearly phony crisis was followed by warnings about global climate change: Global cooling was going to lead to a new ice age.
But the best parallel to the current crusade, the real precursor to the current “panic du jour,” was the computer model-based alarmism of the “Club of Rome.” The Club of Rome’s claim that global economic collapse was imminent because the world would soon “run out” of some critical resources was a very appropriate precursor to the current dire warnings. It too based its alarms not on any scientific analysis of specific issues, but on a computer model. And like the current call to action, their model was pre-destined to give the result they wanted.
The criticism of the “Club of Rome” models by Resources For the Future clearly applies to the Global Climate Models’ predictions of doom. RFF pointed out that parameters with a negative impact were programmed to grow non-linearly (exponentially in fact) and parameters that mitigated negative effects were programmed to grow, if at all, “only in discrete increments.”
In each of these false alarms, nature and technology spiked their prophecies. The natural cooling period of the ‘50s and ‘60s turned into the warming period of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and with the help of increased C02, a plant nutrient, instead of mass starvation, we had no problem growing enough food for the rapidly increasing world population, and we continue to find and make more efficient use of our other critical resources.
But the anti-growth, anti-development crowd are a hardy bunch. They won’t give up. As nature switched from global cooling to global warming, so did they.
It is quite easy to link virtually all of the principal proponents of this overall agenda through a two- or three-generation mentor-apprentice-mentor professional family tree. I don’t want to go through a specific list of names. That has all been well researched and reported by many of you here. But it is important to understand that without this process of resonating self-acclamation, such bad science and ludicrous predictions would long ago have relegated them all to obscurity.
Make no mistake, their cast of characters may have expanded a bit, but at the core, there is an unbroken lineage back to those unbelievably wrong, unscientific prognosticators.
Their basic method of attack may be the same, but they have certainly refilled their operations. They learned from the “Club of Rome” episode. Since basic hard science is more difficult to bias, they would resort again to modeling. And since critics will take the time to examine their assumptions, they make the models big, obscure, and full of complex feedback structures much too abstract to debate in a public forum.
That all brings us to what has happened in the last 20 years, and where we are today. It is worthwhile reviewing what has gone on over the past two decades to give perspective and context to what is taking place today.

Some Basic Facts
Let’s begin by summarizing what we did know then and what we do know now. In fact, we don’t know as much as the media and the public have been led to think we know.
Here is what we could include in an absolute fact base:
  • Over long periods of time climate changes
  • Over short periods of time weather changes
  • There have been relatively long periods of time when the world has been colder than it is now
  • There have been relatively long periods of time when the world has been warmer than it is now
  • C02 is a trace gas whose presence in the atmosphere can contribute to an increase in the absorption of thermal radiation
  • The increased use of carbon-based fuels has produced significant increases in the amount of C02 released to the atmosphere, though still dwarfed by natural sources

Also, there have been a number of identifiable periods of temperature variability over the past century:
Cooling in the ‘20s
Heating in the ‘30s and ‘40s
Cooling in the ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s
Warming in the ‘80s and ‘90s
and cooling for the past decade

It was the warming period of the late ‘80s and ‘90s that provided the context and the opportunity for the alarmists to argue that once again we faced a serious calamity.

Climate Change and Public Policy
My own involvement with global climate change began in 1989 when I was serving as Chief of Staff in the White House for the first President Bush. The year before had seen the staged testimony before the Congressional Committee that launched into the public consciousness a fear of global warming.
In 1989 the pressure for drastic policy changes to respond to the crisis began. Since some of those changes had a budget impact, Dick Darman, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, came to my office to discuss the issues. We both met with Allan Bromley, the President’s Science Advisor, and we agreed to let some of the leading advocates come in and discuss the science and the models behind their concern.
In 1989/1990 the Global Climate Models were being run on computers very much less powerful than those now available. Models were relatively primitive. They had virtually no inclusion of ocean/atmospheric interactions. When the alarmists came to see Allan Bromley and me, I asked how they could believe results if they were modeling climate without including, in any effective way, the ocean/air heat and mass transfer. That shortcoming was required of the models because of time step limitations imposed by the model elements and characteristics.
They tried to argue the ocean wasn’t that significant because the culprit was airborne CO2. I pointed out that the top couple of meters of the ocean had a thermal capacity greater than the entire atmosphere, and that the top 100 meters of ocean were generally well mixed and that the heat and mass transfer coupling at the interface was truly significant. All this meant the air/ocean interactions were a major driver of reality. When I suggested they could confirm the critical significance of the ocean in a one-dimensional model, they suggested we didn’t understand how complex the issue was. They were still determined to use their faulty models to influence policy. Only in recent years have they been able to begin to model the significant ocean contributions within the models. But they are still far from being able to handle the reality of nature.
Our response to their call for policy change in 1989 was to point out that their models should be supported by good science, and that in order to get good science, we would provide a very substantial increase in funding for global climate research. I believe we raised it from a couple of hundred million dollars to what was then considered a huge level of funding: $1.5 billion. We believed that level would support some serious research to clarify all perspectives of climate change.
Over the years, the anti-growth lobby has used the global warming issue very effectively. They have received even more significant levels of funding. One estimate puts the U.S. contribution to climate research today at $10 billion per year and climbing. Unfortunately, the alarmists have effectively captured the funding allocation process.
An important question to ask now is: What have we gotten for that investment? In my opinion, surprisingly little. Of course, the computing capacity has been increased, and the models have become bigger and more complex, and they have been able to include better detail in some of the air-ocean interactions, but they still are a long way from modeling detailed phenomena very well. And of course, many of the most critical phenomena are still represented in the computer models by an assumed interaction or feedback process. And thus, the models are still susceptible to the same predestination of results as was the “Club of Rome” model.

Some Elements of the Science
This presentation is not intended to go into any of the technical details of modeling, or of the science of climate. However, there are a couple of aspects of those technical details which should, in broad general terms, be understood by those responsible for policy. These issues, in fact, are where we must be diligent in clarifying the science and separating fact from myth.
One of these issues is feedback. Feedback in climate systems is a regulating mechanism within the climate system that dampens or enhances fluctuations, most particularly fluctuations in temperature. If, for example, a climate change that is produced by a slight increase in temperature will itself further increase the temperature, that is positive feedback. But if that temperature-increase-induced change will tend to reduce the increase, that is negative feedback.
One visualization of the difference between positive and negative feedback is to consider what happens to us when we take a shower. If the water temperature is exactly what we want and doesn’t change, feedback has no impact. But suppose the temperature drifts up a bit, gets hotter. We reach over, and either turn the cold up a bit, or the hot down a bit until we return to our ideal temperature. That is how negative feedback stabilizes a system.
However, consider our shower with the faucets incorrectly marked, the cold faucet marked hot and the hot marked cold. When the temperature drifts hot, we may turn higher the faucet marked cold. But this is really the hot faucet, and so the flow gets ever hotter. If we try to correct temperature by turning down the faucet marked hot (when actually this is the cold line) the water again gets hotter. The more feedback response there is, the hotter and hotter the flow gets. This is positive feedback.
If computer models represent critical phenomena in such a way that the feedback is always positive, it is inevitable that with increasing CO2 the result will be excessive heating.
There is just now beginning to be some closer examination of a number of the feedback phenomena critical to the model results such as cloud-climate feedbacks. Furthermore, we are beginning to recognize that some possibly significant phenomena with strong stabilizing negative feedback have been left out of the models. One potentially extremely important such effect is the iris effect being studied by Dr. Richard Lindzen at MIT.
Another critical issue which deserves more serious, dispassionate study is the basic carbon exchange cycle, which determines how much C02 remains in the atmosphere. We need better science to determine which phenomena actually establish C02 concentration at any given time. It is virtually accepted as given that a fIxed fraction of anthropogenic C02 remains in the air, even though the initial emissions and remaining C02 are both extremely small fractions of much larger natural C02 fluxes. This basic assumption makes inevitable the conclusion that C02 produced by man-made processes is responsible for the “great disaster of global warming.”
Paradoxically, and very important to this concept of C02 driving temperature, there is also a well-accepted data-set of global temperature and C02 concentrations for the past 400,000 years which shows it is temperature driving an increase in C02 and not C02 driving temperature. It is interesting to note how this contrasting set of data is finessed in the alarmist rationalization of the world. In essence, they dismiss it with a self-serving phrase: “While carbon dioxide may have acted as a feedback in the past, it is acting as a forcing in the current climate.” No science, just rhetoric.
I have dwelt a bit on these two technical details because I feel that they are among the least effectively understood issues that deserve better scientific study and a better share of the climate research budget for real, unbiased scientific examination, analysis, and data collection. They are important because they are the critical assumptions which virtually predestine the doom and gloom.

Return to Policy
But let me get back to the policy debate. In one of the only times he has ever said anything that was right, Al Gore recently told the American Association for the Advancement of Science “we have a full-blown political struggle to communicate the truth.” His only problem is that his version of science is more political than true.
As noted earlier, the alarmists have learned well from the past. They saw what motivates policy makers is not necessarily just hard science, but a well-orchestrated symphony of effort. Their approach is calculated and deliberate. Remember the quote from one of the most outspoken alarmists, “We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of the doubts we have.”
They have used that strategy to execute an orchestrated agenda over the last two decades:
  • Announce a disaster
  • Cherry pick some results
  • Back it up with computer modeling
  • Proclaim a consensus
  • Stifle the opposition
  • Take over the process and control the funding
  • Roll the policy makers

In the past, when they tried some of this on population explosion and global starvation, or global cooling, or their Malthusian vision of a world running out of resources, they were thwarted by nature and technology. Over time, we are confident that nature will thwart them again. Their computer model-generated output may give them the result they want for press releases, but nature is not impressed.
Nature will eventually do what nature has always done. It will respond in a self-stabilizing manner over the long term with moderate variability over multi-decade periods and with occasional significant variability over the short term.
But waiting for “eventually” to prove the alarmists wrong is not the wisest course of action. Unfullfillable ambitions to stifle growth will devastate a world trying to deal with the complexities of economics, stability, and the environment. Quality of life depends on access to energy. Noble intentions about “C02-free” sources of energy are not sufficient, if their agenda of eliminating coal as a source, and turning their back on nuclear, are allowed to be part of our near-term policies.

The Challenge Ahead
So what is our challenge? What agenda do we define for ourselves if we are to avert a policy disaster?
We need to recognize that for at least most of the next decade the real battle will be to win over public opinion and influence the policy makers. Unfortunately, standing between us and the public most of the time is the media. And the press seems to have bought the alarmist line, hook and sinker. They thrive on reinforcing the alarms.
I am often asked about the press. The question is usually something like “is the press biased or ignorant?” My answer is: Yes they are.
We have to try to deal with a long-term education process and a long-term lobbying process.
And we have to keep working to make the science right and restore integrity to the data-gathering process. This concern about data is very significant. It is critical that there be real consistency and validity in the observed data which define the state of climate, and changes in the state of climate.
We are all aware of the games played with the data producing the infamous “hockey stick” plot of temperatures. We also know how many of you here worked hard with good, persistent forensics and analysis to force the correction of the misrepresentation that had been a showpiece in the early IPCC reports. That kind of diligent effort and good science is a good example of how we must continue to deal with specific issues.
The world-wide data collection network is also far from world-class. There has been a lot written about the far-from-ideal locations here in the U.S., and how the large loss of stations in recent years makes comparisons across time questionable.
The best approach to assure honest consideration of reality in developing policy alternatives would be to establish standards for siting, and establish equipment and procedural standards for collection, processing, and dissemination. This is the only way to affirm data quality and reliability.
But most critically, in order for the science to be right there has to be broader, less-restrictive distribution of research funds. In a sense there has to be a “Fairness Doctrine” applied to the funding of research and to the journal review and publishing of papers. We have all seen and heard of the success the alarmists have had in taking control of who gets funding, who gets published, who gets acclaimed, and who gets demonized. We have started to address this perversion of process, and have begun to overcome some of the obstacles. And with nature affirming our belief, and confirming our science, we will continue to make headway.
And, most important, we must work hard to communicate on these issues in terms that can be understood by non-technical individuals. We must remember we are trying to educate the public and policy makers.
It won’t be easy. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy. But it is certainly worthwhile to restore honest science, valid science, and good data as the basis for good public policy. Climate changes, but good science can explain it. That is our mission.



2011 PORSCHE CAYENNE -LUMMA DESIGN

The 2011 Porsche Cayenne was just launched not even two months ago and already the look of the SUV is being transformed. Some may even like this transformation created by Lumma Design considering the Cayenne hasn’t been receiving many points for its looks these days. The new tuning package is called the CLR 550 GT and looks to remodel the Cayenne into a meatier machine.
This package includes a new front spoiler with a deep drawn cup spoiler sword and additional carbon applications, side skirts, and a new rear spoiler with integrated carbon diffuser. These illustrate the "meat" we were referring to before that makes the Porsche look like it is sitting closer to the ground like a bull ready to charge. Lumma Design also added a new sporty bonnet made from high-performance materials such as carbon and Kevlar, which if the Cayenne was the bull, the new bonnet would be its flared nostril. The bonnet comes with air inlets that allow the engine to breathe and let out its heated snort. The bonnet also has an elevated windscreen wiper cover to reduce the aerodynamic drag on the bull...uhhh...vehicle.
Lumma Design’s CLR 500 GT package also features three stainless steel tailpipes, roof edge spoiler, and tear-off edge on the tailgate, both made of carbon fiber. The package is finished off with a wider wheelhouse and 23" aluminum rims with a deep wheel hub.
We are going to give it to Lumma Design on this one. They absolutely transformed the Porsche Cayenne into the beast it deserves to be. The only thing we would add is a little more snarl under the hood, but we will just have to settle for the standard 3.6-liter V6 engine with the 300hp growl. Way to take the bull by its horns, Lumma!

POUND FOR POUND PER RING MAGAZINE


The Ring Magazine pound for pound is a list of the current pound for pound professional boxing rankings Top 10 rankings
Rank
Fighter
Record
Weight Class(es)
Title(s)
1
51-3-2 (38 KO)
WBO Welterweight Champion, WBO Super Champion
The Ring Junior Welterweight Champion, WBC Emeritus and Diamond Champion
2
41-0 (25 KO)
Welterweight
WBC Emeritus Champion
3
50-5-1 (37 KO)
WBA and WBO Lightweight Champion ("Undisputed"), WBO Super Champion
The Ring Lightweight Champion
4
23-1 (15 KO)
5
46-6-0-1 (39 KO)
Welterweight
6
29-0-0-1 (17 KO)
7
39-1 (27 KO)

8
45-2-2 (24 KO)
Middleweight
Junior middleweight
WBC and WBO Middleweight Champion ("Undisputed"), WBO Super Champion
WBC Super welterweight Champion, The Ring Middleweight Champion
9
75-3-1 (39 KO)
WBC and The Ring Flyweight Champion
10
34-2 (23 KO)