Monthly Archives: November 2009

Uncategorized

Spirit of Mao Lives at U. of MN

At U, future teachers may be reeducated
They must denounce exclusionary biases and embrace the vision. (Or else.)

Sometimes the Chief has heard seni-laughing references from Minnesota friends about the “People’s Republic of Minnesota.

If this is any indication, maybe the laughter should be gone, leaving nothing but the “People’s Republic”…for real.

Do you believe in the American dream — the idea that in this country, hardworking people of every race, color and creed can get ahead on their own merits? If so, that belief may soon bar you from getting a license to teach in Minnesota public schools — at least if you plan to get your teaching degree at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.

This is because of a series of “reforms” in the teacher education program being drafted and proposed for the U of M that forces compliance with a set of attitudes and procedures that are nearly exact reproductions of procedures implemented in ChiCom Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s disastrous “Cultural Revolution”.

In a report compiled last summer, the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the U’s College of Education and Human Development recommended that aspiring teachers there must repudiate the notion of “the American Dream” in order to obtain the recommendation for licensure required by the Minnesota Board of Teaching. Instead, teacher candidates must embrace — and be prepared to teach our state’s kids — the task force’s own vision of America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic….

The report advocates making race, class and gender politics the “overarching framework” for all teaching courses at the U. It calls for evaluating future teachers in both coursework and practice teaching based on their willingness to fall into ideological lockstep.

The first step toward “cultural competence,” says the task group, is for future teachers to recognize — and confess — their own bigotry. Anyone familiar with the reeducation camps of China’s Cultural Revolution will recognize the modus operandi.

Wait, it gets worse:

The task group recommends, for example, that prospective teachers be required to prepare an “autoethnography” report. They must describe their own prejudices and stereotypes, question their “cultural” motives for wishing to become teachers, and take a “cultural intelligence” assessment designed to ferret out their latent racism, classism and other “isms.” They “earn points” for “demonstrating the ability to be self-critical.”…

The goal of these exercises, in the task group’s words, is to ensure that “future teachers will be able to discuss their own histories and current thinking drawing on notions of white privilege, hegemonic masculinity, heteronormativity, and internalized oppression.”

Good grief, Charlie Brown!…and worse yet:

What if some aspiring teachers resist this effort at thought control and object to parroting back an ideological line as a condition of future employment? The task group has Orwellian plans for such rebels: The U, it says, must “develop clear steps and procedures for working with non-performing students, including a remediation plan.”

This is what Mao referred to as “re-education”, and he built special “camps” to insure proper implementation of this program.

And what if students’ ideological purity is tainted once they begin to do practice teaching in the public schools? The task group frames the danger this way: “How can we be sure that teaching supervisors are themselves developed and equipped in cultural competence outcomes in order to supervise beginning teachers around issues of race, class, culture, and gender?”

Its answer? “Requir[e] training/workshop for all supervisors. Perhaps a training session disguised as a thank you/recognition ceremony/reception at the beginning of the year?”

When teacher training requires a “disguise,” you know something sinister is going on.

Hard to imagine Minnesota is only 20 miles away from the Chief’s outpost. And they can’t figure out why more people are interested in home-schooling.

DISCLOSURE: The Chief is a semi-retired teacher with over a quarte-century of teaching H.S. sciences, as well as social studies, including U.S. history.

Obamunism, Uncategorized

Obamaniac’s Fears

7 stories Barack Obama doesn’t want told

Presidential politics is about storytelling. Presented with a vivid storyline, voters naturally tend to fit every new event or piece of information into a picture that is already neatly framed in their minds.

No one understands this better than Barack Obama and his team, who won the 2008 election in part because they were better storytellers than the opposition. The pro-Obama narrative featured an almost mystically talented young idealist who stood for change in a disciplined and thoughtful way. This easily outpowered the anti-Obama narrative, featuring an opportunistic Chicago pol with dubious relationships who was more liberal than he was letting on.

A year into his presidency, however, Obama’s gift for controlling his image shows signs of faltering. As Washington returns to work from the Thanksgiving holiday, there are several anti-Obama storylines gaining momentum.

This is the list of items…for more of the details see the original piece, linked from the above header.

Here are seven storylines Obama needs to worry about:
He thinks he’s playing with Monopoly money: Self-explanatory!
Too much Leonard Nimoy: Obama, a legislator and law professor, is fluent in describing the nuances of problems. But his intellectuality has contributed to a growing critique that decisions are detached from rock-bottom principles.
That’s the Chicago Way: This is a storyline that’s likely taken root more firmly in Washington than around the country. The rap is that his West Wing is dominated by brass-knuckled pols….The problem is that many voters took Obama seriously in 2008 when he talked about wanting to create a more reasoned, non-partisan style of governance in Washington.
He’s a pushover: If you are going to be known as a fighter, you might as well reap the benefits. But some of the same insider circles that are starting to view Obama as a bully are also starting to whisper that he’s a patsy. It seems a bit contradictory, to be sure. But it’s a perception that began when Obama several times laid down lines — then let people cross them with seeming impunity.
He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe: Politicians of both parties have embraced the idea that this country — because of its power and/or the hand of Providence — should be a singular force in the world. It would be hugely unwelcome for Obama if the perception took root that he is comfortable with a relative decline in U.S. influence or position in the world.
President Pelosi: The great hazard for Obama is if Republicans or journalists conclude — as some already have — that Pelosi’s achievements are more impressive than Obama’s or come at his expense.
He’s in love with the man in the mirror: No one becomes president without a fair share of what the French call amour propre. Does Obama have more than his share of self-regard?

Glowbull Warming

Climategate Key Questions

Once again, the London Telegraph filling in details somehow overlooked in most of the virtually state-controlled MainStreamMedia.

Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation
There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world.

Firstly:

Perhaps the most obvious, as lucidly put together by Willis Eschenbach (see McIntyre’s blog Climate Audit and Anthony Watt’s blog Watts Up With That), is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws.

They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based.

This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones’s refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got “lost”. Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.

UPDATE: Too late! The data is already “dumped”,  so (conveniently) no pesky verification is possible. So sorry!
Climate change data dumped

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The question which inevitably arises from this systematic refusal to release their data is – what is it that these scientists seem so anxious to hide?

Secondly:

The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to “adjust” recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.

In each of these countries it has been possible for local scientists to compare the official temperature record with the original data on which it was supposedly based. In each case it is clear that the same trick has been played – to turn an essentially flat temperature chart into a graph which shows temperatures steadily rising. And in each case this manipulation was carried out under the influence of the CRU.

Thirdly:

The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics’ work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports.

So much for the scientific peer-review process.

In light of the latest revelations, it now seems even more evident that these men have been failing to uphold those principles which lie at the heart of genuine scientific enquiry and debate. Already one respected US climate scientist, Dr Eduardo Zorita, has called for Dr Mann and Dr Jones to be barred from any further participation in the IPCC. Even our own George Monbiot, horrified at finding how he has been betrayed by the supposed experts he has been revering and citing for so long, has called for Dr Jones to step down as head of the CRU.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

SD Politics

SF Tea Party on Black Friday

Sioux Falls was full to the seams with “black Friday” shoppers, as anyone who had to negotiate traffic around 41st & Louise (for example) can testify.  Not everyone was partaking of said holiday “cheer”(?).

A small but enthusiastic group of the local Tea Party group was out on a late notice event to show their colors along 57th street, just around the corner from Donkey Party Senator Tim’s Sioux Falls office.

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Glowbull Warming, Junk Science

Climategate: Details, Hits B.O. Admin, Cap and Tax Plans

Several reports extending the scope of the Climategate disclosures that continue the processes of destruction and loss of credibility by the Glowbull Warming (junk science) establishment

Firstly, here’s one detailing that some of the e-mails rigging the debate are to/from/involving B.O. “Science Czar” John Holdren.  Surprise, surprise, surprise!

Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren involved in unwinding “Climategate”  scandal

Lift up a rock and another snake comes slithering out from the ongoing University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) scandal, now riding as “Climategate”.

Obama Science Czar John Holdren is directly involved in CRU’s unfolding Climategate scandal. In fact, according to files released by a CEU hacker or whistleblower, Holdren is involved in what Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball terms “a truculent and nasty manner that provides a brief demonstration of his lack of understanding, commitment on faith and willingness to ridicule and bully people”.

“The files contain so much material that it is going to take some time t o put it all in context,” says Ball. “However, enough is already known to underscore their explosive nature. It is already clear the entire claims and positions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are based on falsified manipulated material and is therefore completely compromised.

The IPCC is the much ballyhooed UN group whose bogus reports have been providing the underpinning of the original Kyoto Treaty, and which is the driver for the upcoming bogus efforts at Copenhagen, to which B.O. will apparently be desperately seeking to promote.

As far as Czar Holdgren is concerned, there is an e-mail exchange detailed that he has with Michael Mann (one of the glowbul warming heavy hitters) about rigging the debate.

Climategate e-mails sweep America, may scuttle Barack Obama’s Cap and Trade laws

Just a few considerations in addition to previous remarks about the explosion of the East Anglia Climategate e-mails in America. The reaction is growing exponentially there. Fox News, Barack Obama’s Nemesis, is now on the case, trampling all over Al Gore’s organic vegetable patch and breaking the White House windows. It has extracted some of the juiciest quotes from the e-mails and displayed them on-screen, with commentaries. Joe Public, coast-to-coast, now knows, thanks to the clowns at East Anglia’s CRU, just how royally he has been screwed.

Senator James Inhofe’s Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has written to all the relevant US Government agencies, acquainting them with the nature of the e-mails. But the real car crash for Obama is on Capitol Hill where it is now confidently believed his Cap and Trade climate legislation is toast. It was always problematic; but with a growing awakening to the scale of the scientific imposture sweeping the world, as far as the Antipodes, the clever money is on Cap and Trade laws failing to pass, with many legislators sceptical and the mid-term elections looming ever closer.

Cap and Tax getting incinerated? God lives!
Meanwhile, this is even hitting directly at one of the Chief’s pet peeves – the idiotic situation with the compact fluorescent bulbs – where so-called environmentalists want to force us all to use these expensive and annoying devices, wach of which is an environmental time bomb which will cleverly spread toxic mercury far and wide in the environment as they are used, and inevitably discarded in the normal trash flow.

At the more domestic level, the proposed ban on incandescent light bulbs, so supinely accepted in this servile state of Britain, is now provoking a huge backlash in America. US citizens do not like the government coming into their houses and putting their lights out. Voters may not understand the cut and thrust of climate debate at the technical level, but they know when the Man from Washington has crossed their threshold uninvited.

THe described effect of the continuing and accumulating CRU avalanche?

The term that Fox News is now applying to the Climategate e-mails is “game-changer”. For the first time, Anthropogenic Global Warming cranks are on the defensive, losing their cool and uttering desperate mantras such as “You can be sceptical, not in denial.” Gee, thanks, guys. In fact we shall be whatever we want to be, without asking your permission.

Couldn’t have said the last sentence there any better myself!
In conclusion on this piece, there are several choice observations:

At this rate, Copenhagen is going to turn into a comedy convention with the real world laughing at these liars. Now is the time to mount massive resistance to the petty tyrants and hit them where it hurts – in the wallet. Further down the line there may be, in many countries, a question of criminal prosecution of anybody who has falsified data to secure funds and impose potentially disastrous fiscal restraints on the world in deference to a massive hoax. It’s a new world out there, Al, and, as you may have noticed, the climate is very cold indeed.

Finally – more gory details of the above-mentioned Dr. Mann, again in the context of engaging in rigging the scientific playing field of the “peer-review process”.

Rigging a Climate ‘Consensus’
About those emails and ‘peer review.’

The climatologists at the center of the leaked email and document scandal have taken the line that it is all much ado about nothing. Yes, the wording of their messages was unfortunate, but they insist this in no way undermines the underlying science. They’re ignoring the damage they’ve done to public confidence in the arbiters of climate science.

Another day, more information. The gift that keeps on giving!

Uncategorized

Oil Shieks Out of Cash?

Dubai default threat rattles world stocks

Global stock markets tumbled Thursday on mounting anxiety over a debt default request by Dubai and tighter lending conditions in China, analysts said.

London lost 1.86 percent to 5,264.97 points in late morning trade but was suspended at about 1030 GMT owing to a technical issue.

The London Stock Exchange said it was investigating the “root cause” of the problem and would update investors when it had further information.

Elsewhere, Frankfurt dived 1.80 percent to 5,698.99 points and Paris plunged 1.89 percent to 3,737.06 points at the half-way stage.

In Asia, Beijing nosedived 3.62 percent, Tokyo fell 0.62 percent and Hong Kong closed 1.78 percent lower. Chinese shares were also hit by the prospect of tighter banking rules and worries about monetary policy next year.

New York markets is closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving Day holiday in the United States.

Happy Thanksgiving to all those turkeys over there!

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

UK Defense Minister Hits B.O.’s Afghan Dithering

Bob Ainsworth criticises Barack Obama over Afghanistan

It’s GOT to be bad when even the IngSoc government thinks B.O. is too squishy on the war.

Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, has blamed Barack Obama and the United States for the decline in British public support for the war in Afghanistan.

Mr Ainsworth took the unprecedented step of publicly criticising the US President and his delays in sending more troops to bolster the mission against the Taliban.

A “period of hiatus” in Washington – and a lack of clear direction – had made it harder for ministers to persuade the British public to go on backing the Afghan mission in the face of a rising death toll, he said.

Senior British Government sources have become increasingly frustrated with Mr Obama’s “dithering” on Afghanistan, the Daily Telegraph disclosed earlier this month, with several former British defence chiefs echoing the concerns.

But Mr Ainsworth is the first Government minister to express in public what amounts to personal criticism of the US president’s leadership over the conflict which has so far cost 235 British lives.

“It ain’t that pretty at all.”

Defense Matters!

Navy SEALS Do Job: Get Hung Out to Dry

1 Comment

Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

Just to refresh your memory, this is the handiwork of the Islamoterr in question…note the burned and mutilated [American] bodies hanging from the bridge girder:

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The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Awwwwww. Poor baby. Refer again to the above picture. If there was any justice in this situation the Islamoterr  should have been whacked while “resisting capture”.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

This is SO wrong. We take the best of our best, send them out to do a mission and capture a known and identified terrorist combatant. They do so, and the perp complains (after he had been turned over to Iraqi custody) that he got punched during the course of events.  What happens next?

Why what else, given that this is the day  of the B.O. administration granting the full panoply of legal rights of an American citizen to the killer (by beheading!) of  American reporter Daniel Pearl, and who also happened to  lead the planning for the 9-11 attack?  The feckless wonders of the U.S. Obamanation Navy bring the SEALS up on charges!

IMAGINE THE VERY WORST THING  THAT I COULD SAY TO COMMENT NEGATIVELY ON THIS LEGAL ABORTION.

NOW, CONSIDER IT SAID!

Uncategorized

Jobs R-not Us

There’s bad news, and at least locally, some not so bad news.

The ‘Real’ Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed

As experts debate the potential speed of the US recovery, one figure looms large but is often overlooked: nearly 1 in 5 Americans is either out of work or under-employed.

According to the government’s broadest measure of unemployment, some 17.5 percent are either without a job entirely or underemployed. The so-called U-6 number is at the highest rate since becoming an official labor statistic in 1994.

The number dwarfs the statistic most people pay attention to—the U-3 rate—which most recently showed unemployment at 10.2 percent for October, the highest it has been since June 1983.

One wonders how the alleged bail-out is working economic wonders, just the Change that The One promised that we can believe in.

Instead, it’s turned into “Change – Believe it or Not”…would you believe not, except change for the worse.

As far as the better news goes, recently the Chief saw a map on TV with different colors indicating the levels of states’ unemployment: South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska all were the same color, which represented the lowest unemployment rates in the country.  We’re (still) a long way from Detroit (so far).

Uncategorized

Obamascare Stopper?

Lieberman Digs In on Public Option

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: “I’m going to be stubborn on this.”

Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a “public option,” or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won’t vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included.

Probe for a catch or caveat in that opposition, and none is visible. Can he support a public option if states could opt out of the plan, as the current bill provides? “The answer is no,” he says in an interview from his Senate office. “I feel very strongly about this.” How about a trigger, a mechanism for including a public option along with a provision saying it won’t be used unless private insurance plans aren’t spreading coverage far and fast enough? No again.

So any version of a public option will compel Mr. Lieberman to vote against bringing a bill to a final vote? “Correct,” he says.

Sounds pretty definite.

Obamunism

Obamacare Live, It’s Saturday Night

Dusty Harry Reid has adopted the classic philosophy of high pressure salemen: “Money talks, and no body walks.”

Sweeteners for the South

Staffers on Capitol Hill were calling it the Louisiana Purchase.

On the eve of Saturday’s showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn’t secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.

And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote — and to trumpet the financial “fix” she had arranged for Louisiana. “I am not going to be defensive,” she declared. “And it’s not a $100 million fix. It’s a $300 million fix.”

Her Freudian slip was showing…”$300 million fix”…indeed!
Other critical Donkey Party votes in the Senate used the occasion to extract whatever political payoff was most dear to their hearts from Reid.

Meanwhile, all concerned with the deals political bribes were hastening to deny that their maneuvers had anything to do with re-elections:

….the usually quiet [Blanche] Lincoln, [Donk-AR] who emerged from the cloakroom two hours later to announce her decision. Her attire was school-principal prim — blue suit with knee-length skirt, orange silk scarf tied tightly at the neck — and she was clearly uncomfortable in the spotlight. She spoke with the diction of somebody giving a dramatic reading, and she stumbled more than once as she read, botching the crucial line: “I will vote to support, of, the, the, will vote in support of cloture on the motion to proceed to this bill.”

She argued, a bit too strenuously, that “I’m not thinking about my reelection” in 2010.

If you believe THAT, pleased see me about a GREAT deal on tropical beachfront in NW Moody County, SD!

Here’s hoping that the conclusion of this WaPo piece doesn’t come true:

By the time this thing is done, the millions for Louisiana will look like a bargain.

Defense Matters!

A Modest Proposal…

The Brits are starting to position themselves for their next election cycle. This is part of that positioning from the opposition Conservatives

Tories to pull British forces out of Germany

British forces will pull out of Germany for good, nearly 70 years after the Allied victory in World War Two, as part of a Tory defence “revolution” being drawn up by Dr Liam Fox.

The Shadow Defence Secretary told The Daily Telegraph that ending Britain’s 25,000 strong military presence on the Rhine would be part of a fundamental reorganisation of Nato forces designed to free troops for military operations outside Europe.

The decision would close one of the unfinished chapters of the last war that saw the British military go from occupying force in the ruins of Nazi Germany in 1945 to guarantor of German security against the threat of Soviet invasion during the Cold War.

The announcement of what would be a major reassessment of Britain’s role in European defence came just 24 hours after the European Union surprised Westminster by handing responsibility for its diplomatic relations to the Labour peer Baroness Ashton.

Dr Fox’s decision to call time on Britain’s military links with Germany is a signal of his determination to force through a “wholesale recasting of our foreign and defence policy”.

He also called for the public to be told the truth about the “cost of defeat” in Afghanistan, including Britain being relegated to “the third division” of world politics.

What a concept! Why don’t WE do this? Do we REALLY need to still have a military presence in GERMANY any more? I doubt we’re worried about an incipient Nazi coup. Also, the threat of Soviet tanks from East Germany rolling through the Fulda Gap is obsolete.

IMHO, Dr. Fox has an excellent idea, that should work for us too!

Uncategorized

Climategate Update: Glowbull Warming Science Falls in the Fire

More in the London Telegraph:

Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’?

If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

There’s more in the linked piece specifically noting cases involving:

Manipulation of evidence
Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up
Suppression of evidence
Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists
Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP)
how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority

Throw another AlGore log on the fire!

Uncategorized

NY-23 Election Hacked!

1 Comment

VIRUS in the VOTING MACHINES: Tainted Results in NY-23

The computerized voting machines used by many voters in the 23rd district had a computer virus – tainting the results, not just from those machines known to have been infected, but casting doubt on the accuracy of counts retrieved from any of the machines.

Cathleen Rogers, the Democratic Elections Commissioner in Hamilton County stated that they discovered a problem with their voting machines the week prior to the election and that the “virus” was fixed by a Technical Support representative from Dominion, the manufacturer. The Dominion/Sequoia Voting Systems representative “reprogrammed” their machines in time for them to use in the Nov. 3rd Special Election. None of the machines (from the same manufacturer) used in the other counties within the 23rd district were looked at nor were they recertified after the “reprogramming” that occurred in Hamilton County.

Republican Commissioner Judith Peck refused to speculate on whether the code that governs the counts could have been tampered with. She indicated that “as far as I know, the machine in question was not functioning properly and was repaired” by the technician.

Commissioners in other counties have stated that they were not made aware of the virus issue in Hamilton County. In Jefferson County, inspectors from four districts claim that “human error” resulted in their “mistakenly” entering 0 votes for Hoffman in several districts, resulting in Owens leading Jefferson County on election night though the recanvas of the computer counts now show that Hoffman is leading.

Sounds like this election is FAR from settled!

At least they do have some paper ballots as a backup. If we ever shift to a pure electronic system, American democracy will be dead.

Glowbull Warming

Glowbull Warming: The Scientific Fix?

1 Comment

Reported by that bastion of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy called the New York Times!

Hacked E-Mails Fuel Climate Change Skeptics

Hundreds of private e-mails and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.

The e-mails, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views.

This can give a whole new meaning to the phrase “scientific cooperation”!

Some skeptics asserted Friday that the correspondence revealed an effort to withhold scientific information. “This is not a smoking gun, this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.

There’s good reason why the human caused Glowbull Warming proposition can be considered “junk science”.

What else is the big flap about, aside from that little thing about “scientific integrity”? Like the movie said: follow the money!

From the site that started this whole thing by having the files dumped to it:

Leaked FOIA files 62 mb of gold

…a summary of the 62 MB of data is – personal email correspondences between some of the major players Santer, Briffa, Mann, Osborne, Wahl. Data and code, the data SteveM and I will enjoy but I can’t load CA now. The code or a version of it for HadCRUT was released also. The tone of the emails is quite interesting Steve McIntyre is the focus of much of them but there are quite a few references to obstruction and making things difficult for the ’skeptics’. There are also budgetary items and grant monies- you wouldn’t believe how much money these boys play with.

There are several comments about scientists wanting to hide their environmentalist views to promote the best results. Also, some about people being happy with the death of skeptics as well as a lot of rubbish about the latest Yamal results at CA.

They’re wisely currently considering possible legal ramifications of all this, but in any event it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Uncategorized

ICE Cooled Down

1 Comment

Work site arrests of illegals fall dramatically

Arrests of illegal immigrant workers have dropped precipitously under President Obama, according to figures released Wednesday.

Criminal arrests, administrative arrests, indictments and convictions of illegal immigrants at work sites all fell by more than 50 percent from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2009.

The figures show that Mr. Obama has made good on his pledge to shift enforcement away from going after illegal immigrant workers themselves – but at the expense of Americans’ jobs, said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the Republican who compiled the numbers from the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

Given what we know about B.O. and his swarm of Czars, can anyone be surprised?

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

B.O. Hardly Working on War

Let’s see…B.O.’s had the information and proposals from HIS selected commanding combat General since August. It’s now November. Meanwhile the conduct of the war continues to stagnate, our local allies hold their breath as they wait to decide whether and/or when to jump ship, and any potential local allies take another look at the possibilities of making an accomadation with the Islamoterrs.

White House aides: No Afghan decision before Thanksgiving

President Obama will not announce his decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan before the Thanksgiving holiday, senior aides said Thursday.

The news came as the president greeted 1,500 troops at Osan Air Base in South Korea, just before boarding Air Force One and heading back to Washington after an eight-day trip to Asia.

Obama and his top military and diplomatic aides have been deliberating for months over how to proceed in Afghanistan, where the United States and its partners have sought for eight years to defeat the Taliban and deny al-Qaeda a safe haven from which it can plan and launch attacks.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has stated that without the deployment of up to 40,000 additional troops within the next year, the mission “will likely result in failure.”

Plenty of time for global junketing, complete with his 70 car motorcade, but forget about the troops being left to wither on the vine while B.O. continues to dither.

Uncategorized

Ft. Hood Jihad Update 5

As more information comes out over time, the self-affiliation of the terrorist assassin Hasan as an Islamic jihadi continues to thicken.

Major Hasan’s E-Mail: ‘I Can’t Wait to Join You’ in Afterlife
American Official Says Accused Shooter Asked Radical Cleric When Is Jihad Appropriate?

United States Army Major Nidal Hasan told a radical cleric considered by authorities to be an al-Qaeda recruiter, “I can’t wait to join you” in the afterlife, according to an American official with top secret access to 18 e-mails exchanged between Hasan and the cleric, Anwar al Awlaki, over a six month period between Dec. 2008 and June 2009.

“It sounds like code words,” said Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a military analyst at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. “That he’s actually either offering himself up or that he’s already crossed that line in his own mind.”

Other messages include questions, the official with access to the e-mails said, that include when is jihad appropriate, and whether it is permissible if there are innocents killed in a suicide attack.

“Hasan told Awlaki he couldn’t wait to join him in the discussions they would having over non-alcoholic wine in the afterlife,” the official said.

To revise a comment from an earlier post…”If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then we’d better call it a duck!”

Obamunism

Too Late…It’s Spent!

Obama warns on US public debt pile

After doubling the budget deficit since he came into office, and pushing hard for a massive increase in public spending for a number of programs including the Obamacare health “hellth” bill, it takes nothing if not a massive display of chutzpah to make comments like this.

US President Barack Obama warned that the US economy could head into a “double-dip recession” unless urgent steps were taken to rein in mounting public debt.

“It is important though to recognise if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the US economy in a double-dip recession,” said Mr Obama.

Sounds like the ChiComs have been reading him the riot act about his spending…after all, they have a LOT of investment in U.S. debt to protect from a total fiscal melt-down. IMHO it may be too late. I hope not, but…

National Insecurity

Holder Loses Grip

Holder’s move to criminalize terrorists shows that he has totally lost his situational awareness, or else has determined to put a bullet into the war on terrorism by enabling some of the worst of the worst a very real chance of getting a legal pass.

Trying KSM in Civilian Court: Inconsistent, Indefensible, Inexplicable

Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a federal civilian court is inconsistent, indefensible and inexplicable.

It is inconsistent with Holder’s own decision to try Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in a military commission. It is indefensible in light of the unmistakable intentions of the Framers of the Constitution. It is inexplicable by any prudential analysis of the national interest in dealing with an enemy like al-Qaida.

Some strange ideological impulse—rather than common sense and respect for the rule of law—is driving the Obama administration to give special treatment to the perpetrator of one of the greatest war crimes ever committed against the United States.

Go on and read the rest of the gory details of this legal travesty.
Here’s more on this from another source, detailing the warm fuzzy connection of al Qaeda and the ACLU:

Al Qaeda’s Civil Liberties Union

“I’ll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer.” That, according to former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, is what September 11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) said when he was captured in March 2003.

President Bush had another idea, one that involved protecting the national security interests of the United States. (What a concept!)

But of course the Bush administration did not grant KSM his wish. Instead, the master terrorist was seen as a potentially vital source of intelligence on al Qaeda, which had caught America sleeping less than two years earlier. If U.S. intelligence officials could get him to talk, the Bush administration and the U.S. intelligence community reasoned, then they could learn many of al Qaeda’s well-guarded secrets. And talk, KSM did. So much so, in fact, that he became the U.S. government’s “preeminent source” on al Qaeda and even the “most prolific” detainee in custody. While in the CIA’s detention, he identified (both wittingly and unwittingly) numerous of his fellow al Qaeda terrorists and divulged the details of much of al Qaeda’s post-September 11 plotting.

What could have been?

If KSM were initially shipped to New York for trial, however, the outcome would most likely have been very different. As former DCI Tenet writes in his book At the Center of the Storm: “I believe none of these [counterterrorism] successes would have happened if we had to treat KSM like a white-collar criminal – read him his Miranda rights and get him a lawyer who surely would have insisted that his client simply shut up.”

And sadly, we’re left with the prospects of what Holder, B.O, et al have lined up for the country:

Who are KSM’s lawyers, in any event? They are members of the ACLU’s John Adams Project, which is run in conjunction with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL). The John Adams Project represents Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other 9/11 conspirators the Obama administration has decided to move to U.S. soil for trial. Thus, it is not surprising that the ACLU has praised the controversial move, saying it was “a major victory for due process and the rule of law.”
It is nothing of the sort, but the ACLU consistently portrays itself in this light–as if it is only concerned with protecting the “rule of law.” The reality is quite different. The ACLU has worked diligently to undermine America’s stance in what was formerly known as the “war on terror,” and has even been willing to disseminate propaganda on behalf of our jihadist enemies.

It’s worth remembering that KSM was not just a strategic/tactical planner for al Qaeda’s 9-11 strike. He was willing to get up close and personal with his terrorism, being the one who confessed to CIA interrogators that he personally and tortuously beheaded US reporter Daniel Pearl: “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl, in the City of Karachi, Pakistan.”
This is the slime that Holder, and presumably B.O. think is justified in being granted the full panoply of Constitutional rights of a U.S. citizen.  F.E.T.E.

Uncategorized

You Too Can be a Hamster (But WHY?)

French hotel offers guests a night as a hamster

It’s a unique concept according to its creators,…

Well, that’s ONE way to put it.

…a hotel in the French town of Nantes is offering the chance for people to become a hamster.

…but WHY would you want to?  This seems on the verge of psychosis…but at least it’s not harmful to anyone else.

For 99 euros ($148.10) a night, you can eat hamster grain, run in a giant wheel and sleep in hay stacks in what is called the “Hamster Villa.”

The Chief can supply some grain for a heck of a lot less than $148.10.
So who would do this?

Maud and Sebastien are the first ones to experience how hamsters live, not afraid at the thought of sleeping in hay or feeding on a hamster fountain and special grain.

It’s a unique experience and, the guests say, just something different. “To become a hamster, eat seeds, change our way of life…come out of our daily routine” Maud and Sebastien told Reuters TV…

If it’s their money, and that’s REALLY how they want to spend it, it’s THEIR problem, but IMHO these people SERIOUSLY need to find themselves a real life somehow.

It seems like there’s another descriptive word that might fit better than “hamster”.

Hmmmm. Let’s see…(think, think)…oh, yeah: MOONBATS!

China Watch

CHINA Worried About Obamacare Costs!

This is sourced from Reuters…not exactly noted as a nerve center of the VRWC!

China questions costs of U.S. healthcare reform

Guess what? It turns out the Chinese are kind of curious about how President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plans would impact America’s huge fiscal deficit. Government officials are using his Asian trip as an opportunity to ask the White House questions. Detailed questions.

Boilerplate assurances that America won’t default on its debt or inflate the shortfall away are apparently not cutting it. Nor should they, when one owns nearly $2 trillion in assets denominated in the currency of a country about to double its national debt over the next decade.

Nothing happening in Washington today should give Beijing any comfort or confidence about what may happen tomorrow. Healthcare reform was originally promoted as a way to “bend the curve” on escalating entitlement costs, the major part of which is financing Medicare and Medicaid. That is looking more and more like an overpromised deliverable.

Looks like even the ChiComs get the picture…now, if we can only get SanFranNan Pelosi and Dusty Harry Reid to exercise some fiscal rationality….

Uncategorized

Paying the Danegeld – Update

[UK] Army tells its soldiers to ‘bribe’ the Taleban

British forces should buy off potential Taleban recruits with “bags of gold”, according to a new army field manual published yesterday.

Army commanders should also talk to insurgent leaders with “blood on their hands” in order to hasten the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

The edicts, which are contained in rewritten counter-insurgency guidelines, will be taught to all new army officers. They mark a strategic rethink after three years in which British and Nato forces have failed to defeat the Taleban. The manual is also a recognition that the Army’s previous doctrine for success against insurgents, which was based on the experience in Northern Ireland, is now out of date.

In a previous posting concerning other NATO bribes tribute payments the Chief noted that according to the report at least the US and UK had enough sense not to revive this historical tradition of paying “Danegeld” to the Taliban. (See the previous posting for the explanation concerning Danegeld.)

Unfortunately, it is necessary to retract the credit for a residue of rationality that the current Ingsoc government of the island that has recently transformed into Airstrip One.  Apparently the current Big Brother Gordon Brown has completely lost his historical mind, and forgotten the lessons that the England of King Alfred the Great learned through hard experience.

Uncategorized

Ft. Hood Jihad Update 4

Well, more stuff keeps coming out, further reinforcing the image of Nidal Hasan as viewing himself to be a militant jihadi.

Now, not only his own leavings like his e-mails, business card captions self-proclaiming himself to be a “Soldier of Allah”,  but his Yemeni Sheikh correspondent modestly concedes that he could claim a role in transforming Major Hasan into jihadi Hasan, as reported by that not exactly right-wing rag, The Washington Post.

Cleric says he was confidant to Hasan

In his first interview with a journalist since the Fort Hood rampage, Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi said that he neither ordered nor pressured Maj. Nidal M. Hasan to harm Americans, but that he considered himself a confidant of the Army psychiatrist who was given a glimpse via e-mail into Hasan’s growing discomfort with the U.S. military.

The cleric said he thought he played a role in transforming Hasan into a devout Muslim eight years ago, when Hasan listened to his lectures at the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Northern Virginia. Aulaqi said that Hasan “trusted” him and that the two developed an e-mail correspondence over the past year.

As to whether or not Sheikh Aulaqi is qualified as a militant himself, he can speak for himself:

Explaining why he wrote on his Web site that Hasan was a “hero,” According to Shaea, Aulaqi said: “I blessed the act because it was against a military target. And the soldiers who were killed were not normal soldiers, but those who were trained and prepared to go to Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Aulaqi’s views are controversial, earning him not only designation by U.S. counterterrorism officials as a leading English-language promoter and supporter of al-Qaeda, but also criticism from other fundamentalist Islamic clerics. Sheik Salman al-Awdah, a Saudi religious leader, gave an interview last week calling the massacre at Fort Hood “unjustified,” “irrational” and “inadvisable” because it will cause a backlash against Muslims in America and Europe.

But Aulaqi’s statements reflect the increasingly radical path he has taken since settling in Yemen in 2004. Print, video and audio files of his words have been found on the private hard drives of terrorism suspects in Canada in 2006 and in the United States in 2007 and 2008. He also wrote congratulations to al Shabaab, an Islamic extremist group leading an insurgency in Somalia, after it apparently used the first U.S.-citizen suicide bomber last fall.

In the light of just what has been reported from various sources, ANYONE who is still holding to the shibboleth “Don’t jump to any hasty conclusions about Hasan’s motivation” has their head firmly in a location where the sun never shines, whether it their name is Obama, Napolitano, Leahy, or anything else.

Glowbull Warming

AirStrip One Update

1 Comment

ATTENTION!  Among the late dispatches received from Airstrip concerning the latest Ingsoc Party proposal:

Everyone in Britain could be given a personal ‘carbon allowance’

Everyone in Britain should have an annual carbon ration and be penalised if they use too much fuel, the head of the Environment Agency will say.

Lord Smith of Finsbury believes that implementing individual carbon allowances for every person will be the most effective way of meeting the targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

It would involve people being issued with a unique number which they would hand over when purchasing products that contribute to their carbon footprint, such as fuel, airline tickets and electricity.

Like with a bank account, a statement would be sent out each month to help people keep track of what they are using.

If their “carbon account” hits zero, they would have to pay to get more credits.

Let’s see…a word comes to mind:…oh…er…well…? ORWELL!

Ruth Lea, an economist from Arbuthnot Banking Group, told the Daily Mail: “This is all about control of the individual and you begin to wonder whether this is what the green agenda has always been about….

D’ya think?

It’s Orwellian. This will be an enormous tax on business.”

Hopefully, for their sake, the GlowBull Warming mania fad will have run its course before this goes into effect.

Obamunism

ObaMao!

1 Comment

This is obviously a scurrilous attack of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (VWRC) on Our Enlightened President designed to make him look like a Communist!

…uh…oh.  It’s not.  It’s the ChiComs themselves welcoming him into their club!

Chinese greet ‘Oba Mao’ with flaming statue, fakes

Obamao

The Chinese have learned English from his speeches and celebrated the way he rolls up his sleeves. Now President Barack Obama is finally coming, and he’s being greeted with “Oba Mao” T-shirts and a statue of him that bursts into flames.

Is this a message? Do the ChiComs recognize a true spiritual brother?

Barack Hussein ObaMao, Hmmmm – hmmmm -hmmmm.

Uncategorized

Fat Lady Reluctant to Sing in NY-23

Recanvassing shows NY-23 race tightens even as Rep. Bill Owens is sworn into House seat

They say it ain’t over until the fat lady sings. In the NY-23 election, contrary to reports, this hasn’t happened yet.

Vote count errors, and 10K+ uncounted absentee ballots could actually reverse the election outcome…unfortunately the Donkey Party candidate was already sworn in and voted for the Pelosiscare Hellth Bill.

…a recanvassing in the 11-county district shows that Owens’ lead has narrowed to 3,026 votes over Hoffman, 66,698 to 63,672, according to the latest unofficial results from the state Board of Elections.

In Oswego County, where Hoffman was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes — 12,748 to 11,000.

The new vote totals mean the race will be decided by absentee ballots, of which about 10,200 were distributed, said John Conklin, communications director for the state Board of Elections.

Sill, it would be really interesting if the results were reversed…turns out with the absentee votes out, including those from the Ft. Drum 10th Mountain Division, that the close result could well be changed.

Another problem found was the discovery that there were at least four instances where the Conservative Hoffman’s vote was erroneously reported as “zero”….that MIGHT have some effect too…d’ya think?

Constitution Watch, Glowbull Warming

A Mixed Blessing

Federal program to help company that processes Black Hills wood chips

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has selected Western Biomass Energy LLC to participate in the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. Western Biomass Energy converts wood chips from the Black Hills into renewable fuels.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., authored BCAP, which was included in the 2008 Farm Bill.

The company will use the funding to offset the feedstock cost associated with its pilot biorefinery in Upton, Wyo., that refines cellulosic ethanol from South Dakota wood chips.

One supposes that this is supposed to be good news. It is for some.

Senator Thune can claim that he brought home the bacon for SD. Sure ’nuff! A Democrat couldn’t have done it better!

The Chief worked in a lab at the SD School of Mines for 5 weeks one summer a few years ago as a science teacher. This was very informative, and very enjoyable…the project of the lab was to devise methods of looking for techniques to increase the ethanol yield from wood chip cellulosic feedstocks.

I had a chance met the entrepreneurs of this project. I was impressed by them. They are highly competent engineers and businessmen, and are doing all they can to succeed with their enterprise. The School of Mines was also doing its job well…using their grants from the company for assisting the businesspeople to be able to make use of SD products (OK, by-products) to produce a value-added commodity that can help you get your car down the road at a cheaper price.

So what’s the rub?

Firstly, one could wonder if this enterprise could continue without the continued infusion of tax money (or should it be called printing-press money these days)? Hate to say so, but probably not…otherwise there would be no need for the subsidy. (Ooops! That also could apply to the corn-based ethanol too…but we won’t go THERE!)

Some might argue that the Glowbull Warming crisis forces us to use public funds to develop alternative renewable energy. Frankly, as noted in numerous previous postings on the category of “Glowbull Warming”, the Chief isn’t a member of the Orthodox Carboniferous Church of St. AlGore so that’s not a real impressive argument hereabouts. (If you really think man-made CO2 is causing a problem…stop exhaling it with every breath!)

So, what else?…oh, yeah…Senator, could you remind me again what article and section of the Constitution addresses cellulosic biomass ethanol? Must have missed that one in my PoliSci classes.

I guess if one thinks the constitution is “a flexible living document”, allowing stuff like this, then it’s all OK?…sort of like supporting McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Political Speech Limitation Act while you were still in the House. Don’t get me wrong…I REALLY DO like you Senator, and you’re generally way ahead of most of the Senate, but you really ought to bone up on the Constitution a bit, otherwise some might think that you have leanings towards Republocratic Demicanism.

It is realized that this may not give many readers a warm fuzzy glow, (with stuff to alienate both sides of the so-called spectrum) but what’s the point of trying to develop political principles if one’s not willing to at least make the effort to be consistent with them. Easy for ME to say…knowing I’ll never be elected…but hey, it feels right anyway.