Obama and Republicans in agreement: The Senate should cancel next week’s vacation.
The board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has issued a statement demanding that all attacks on global warming advocates cease.
Though they couch their wording as if they oppose all outside interference with the scientific process (a bad idea on its own), they conveniently only complain about the efforts of skeptics to challenge the work of scientists who support human-caused global warming.
Lawmakers and activist groups also have sought detailed disclosure of records from climate researchers. The American Tradition Institute (ATI) has asked the University of Virginia to turn over thousands of e-mails and documents written by Michael E. Mann, a former U-Va. professor and a prominent climate scientist. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a climate change skeptic, demanded many of the same documents last year in an effort to determine if Mann had somehow defrauded taxpayers in obtaining research grants. ATI also has sued NASA to disclose records detailing climate scientist James Hansen’s compliance with federal ethics and disclosure rules.
In other words, don’t question these people, only skeptics are open for attack.
Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty switches from global warming advocate to skeptic.
This is just more fallout from Climategate and the unwillingness of scientists to clean house.
Lumber and regulation: First, the Obama administration is about to release its spotted owl recovery plan for the northwest United States, and no one knows what’s in it. Second, a timber industry group has sued the Obama administration for not selling “at least 502 million board feet each year, the amount provided for under the resource management plans for the agency’s districts in Western Oregon.”
With the first story, I wonder what happened to the “most transparent administration in history.” With the second, the Obama administration continues its pattern of ignoring the law in favor of its own preferences.
Left wing civility: Glenn Beck and his family harassed during outdoor movie night in New York park.
It’s that time of year again, buckos. Every June, like clockwork, stories and op-eds like these start to flood the media:
Not surprisingly, these stories always happen about the same time our federal bureaucracy puts together a one day June propaganda event called the Space Weather Enterprise Forum, designed to sell to journalists the idea that we are all gonna die if we don’t spend gazillions of dollars building satellites for tracking the sun’s behavior. Along with this conference come numerous press releases, written by the conference’s backers. Here for example is a quote from a press release emailed to me and many journalists:
Recent activity on the Sun, captured in stunning imagery from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, and the resulting threat of significant radiation storms and radio blackouts here on Earth are vivid reminders of our need to better understand the science, improve our forecasts and warnings, and better prepare ourselves for severe space weather storms as the next solar maximum approaches.
The problem for these fear-mongers, however, is that shortly before their forum the scientists who actually study the sun held another press conference, where they laid out in exquisite detail the sun’s astonishing recent decline in activity, and how the next solar maximum will likely be the weakest in centuries and might very well be the last maximum we will see for decades to come.
In other words, the annual effort by government bureaucrats to drum up funding for more space weather facilities has collided head on with the facts.
That there are science journalists from so many major news organization so easily conned into buying this fear-mongering is pitiful enough. More significant, however, is the fact that this annual effort at crying wolf has not been very successful. For years Congress has not funded any new space weather satellites, and doesn’t appear ready to do so in the future, especially with the present budget crisis.
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Pigs fly: The liberal Netherlands appears to be abandoning multiculturalism.
The space war continues: Several senators are threatening to subpoena NASA over what they perceive as the agency’s foot-dragging in building a heavy-lift rocket.
Idiots. They give NASA less money and less time to build the program-formerly-called-Constellation, and then are surprised when things don’t go well. Of course, it doesn’t help that the Obama administration is trying to sabotage the project anyway.
The Senate Republicans have pulled out of Biden’s debt limit negotiations.
This article strongly suggests to me that the Democrats, who hold a majority in this negotiating group, have refused to take seriously the Republicans’ demand to cut spending, instead focusing on tax increases as a solution. The problem is that you could raise our taxes to 100 percent and you wouldn’t solve the debt problem. The government has got to reduce its spending.
Finding out what’s in it: Another error in Obamacare allows middle class retirees to get Medicaid, which is only intended for the poor.
The day of reckoning looms: The Congressional Budget Office today reported that unless something drastic is done, the national debt will exceed the size of the entire U.S. economy by 2021.
Global warming scientist James Hansen is being sued for failing to comply with ethics rules and financial disclosures regarding more than $1.2 million in compensation he earned outside his NASA job.
Conservative lawmakers are coalescing behind a pledge to cut spending across the board while requiring a balanced budget amendment.
This story once again suggests to me that the political winds are definitely favoring big cuts in government spending. Woe to the politician of either party who ignores these winds.
President Barack Obama’s complete list of historic firsts.
Take some time to look at the list closely, including the links that back up each “first.” You might remain skeptical of some of the stories, but the weight of numbers is surely suggestive of the kind of president Obama really is.
The failed predictions of global warming activists.
In 2005 “the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations University declared that 50 million people could become environmental refugees by 2010, fleeing the effects of climate change.” Three years later . . . Srgjan Kerim, president of the UN General Assembly, said it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010. A UNEP web page showed a map of regions where people were likely to be displaced by the ravages of global warming. It has recently been taken offline but is still visible in a Google cache.
Will the last one out please turn off the light? Companies are leaving California in record numbers.
White House chief of staff can’t defend Obama’s “indefensible” (his word) economic policies.
NASA is about to decide on its shuttle heavy-lift replacement, and it looks like it will be almost entirely shuttle-derived.
As I have said previously, this rocket will almost certainly never fly. NASA has to start over after spending billions and years developing Constellation, and is being given less money and time to do it.
And even if I am wrong and this rocket does fly, I bet it will do only one flight and then be retired as too costly.
Poland joins the European Space Agency.
It’s all about power and control, not safety: The TSA has decided to block any further private companies from providing airport screening.
Ten congressmen (from both parties) and a law professor are suing the Obama administration to stop the war in Libya.
Though some progress has been made, the negotiations over the debt limit and the budget still appear deadlocked.
Don’t bet on it: A memo signed today by a senior NASA official marks the end of the Constellation program.
All this does is make the name change of the program-formerly-called-Constellation official. The pork continues nonetheless!
Surprise, surprise! Obamacare doesn’t stop Medigap providers and AARP from discriminating against seniors with preexisting conditions, as had been promised.
This story is just more evidence that the law is a mess, it should never have been passed, and in the future our so-called lawmakers should read the goddamn legislation before they vote on it.
I should add that I think it a very big mistake for the government to forbid insurance companies from denying new coverage to sick individuals. If insurance companies are forced to accept everyone as a new customer, even those who are ill, why bother paying for insurance when you are healthy? Everyone can simply wait until they are sick, and then buy the coverage, thereby getting a lot of insurance for very little investment. The result: insurance companies go bankrupt, as the whole concept of insurance depends on a lot of healthy customers paying the cost, at a low rate, for those who are sick.
The Republican presidential candidates discussed the space program’s future at the New Hampshire debate last night.
Two lawyers explain why Obamacare is losing in the courts.
Mexican drug cartels are using Arizona mountaintops and caves to spy on border.
The one cave shelter photo shown in this article looks almost exactly like the one we passed in one of our hikes in February near the border.
Unacceptable, from either party: A Tea Party blogger was roughed up by a Republican official at Indiana rally this weekend. With video.
Global greenhouse gas emissions have risen even faster during the past decade than predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other international agencies. According to alarmist groups, this proves global warming is much worse than previously feared. The increase in emissions “should shock even the most jaded negotiators” at international climate talks currently taking place in Bonn, Germany, the UK Guardian reports. But there’s only one problem with this storyline; global temperatures have not increased at all during the past decade.
The evidence is powerful, straightforward, and damning. NASA satellite instruments precisely measuring global temperatures show absolutely no warming during the past the past 10 years. This is the case for the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, including the United States. This is the case for the Arctic, where the signs of human-caused global warming are supposed to be first and most powerfully felt. This is the case forglobal sea surface temperatures, which alarmists claim should be sucking up much of the predicted human-induced warming. This is the case for the planet as a whole.
If atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are the sole or primary driver of global temperatures, then where is all the global warming? We’re talking 10 years of higher-than-expected increases in greenhouse gases, yet 10 years of absolutely no warming. That’s 10 years of nada, nunca, nein, zero, and zilch. [emphasis mine]
