The American Tradition Institute, ATI had to sue NASA to get information regarding the fees Dr. James Hansen collected promoting anthropogenic global warming. By law this is public information, but NASA refused to comply. ATI got only preliminary, but astounding, figures on what Dr. Hansen has been paid to promote what is in our opinion the greatest science fraud in history.

On background know that for all of history physics has been a poorly paid profession. After the few thousand university professorships and Chairs there was little for a man with a doctorate in physics. Many work as math tutors, but not Dr. Hansen. He has done very well in spite of his complaints of being repressed by George W. Bush.

Dr. Hansen’s Form SF 278, a required annual filing under the Freedom of Information Act reveals he received between $236,000 and $1,232,500 in outside income in 2010 in addition to his Goddard Institute of Space Sciences Director salary. Fees included: $26,008 to $72,500 speaking honoraria, $150,001 to $1.1 million in prizes, and almost $60,000 of in-kind travel payments. The last item is curious as Dr. Hansen’s earlier SF 278 filings claimed no such payments. Could this be an issue for the IRS?

The one year total is between $472,000 and $2,465,000 in addition to his GISS salary. Dr. Hansen is easily the best paid physicist in history. This has been going on since 1988, 23 years! We estimate Dr. Hansen has made no less than $5 million and perhaps $30 million promoting anthropogenic global warming!

What has Dr. Hansen been saying to command so much money? He has demonized carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in spite of the fact is defined as a “trace gas” in air meaning it is insignificant. We can breathe up to 15,000 parts per million, ppm, of CO2, but Dr. Hansen expresses alarm that it has risen from 280 to 380 ppm. We exhale 160,000 ppm and the EPA calls this poison?

Dr. Hansen claims “Manmade CO2 stays in the atmosphere 400 years!” expressing the idea “manmade” molecules are different than “natural” molecules. This is “Vitalism,” a pre-1832 chemistry concept. In that year German chemist Frederich Wohler synthesized urea, an organic chemical, from inorganic sources, proving molecules are all the same; see one, seen them all. Hansen’s idea is so anti-science and destructive he should lose his degree for promoting it.

Interestingly, Dr. Hansen never puts that claim in any of his many papers. All are peer reviewed by the journals publishing them, but you will find said “peers” are usually GISS employees of Dr. Hansen. He puts a dozen, or more, GISS co-authors on his papers which is another old political game in academia to enhance publication credits as he gets to put his name on their papers and claim credit. Authorship is highly regarded in academia and questionable credit is a tool in the Hansen game.

Adrian Vance

On the killing of Awlaki

In the case of anyone targeting American or other citizens (that is, a terrorist intent on killing defenseless non-combatants), I would be unhappy if the American President (whoever they might be) did NOT only want to terminate, but did not do so on a timely basis (meaning before they attacked non-combatants, if possible, and definitely before they did so, again).

Awlaki repeatedly attempted to do so and self-published videos of his actions and intentions. He can be considered an un-uniformed enemy combatant, so is not afforded any protection from the Rules of Land Warfare (it has provisions that say you can kill them as spies and saboteurs).

Lawyers who want to treat terrorism (and everything else) as a criminal offense, have a bad case of Maslow's hammer (everything looks like a nail). Hostis humani generis best befits terrorists.

SB 23: Improved but not there yet.

The “major overhaul patent bill” Mr. Obama signed Friday 9/16/11 is an example of government thinking and dealing with a simple problem.

Remarkably, SB 23 takes some litigation out of patents. Inventors have long been plagued by people claiming to have invented their creations after they’re up and running. Suits predicated on vague evidence, like high school notebooks, generate huge expert witness and attorney bills for the hapless inventor. Now, when you file it you own it, per SB23, Section 2.

700,000 patent filings await 7,000 US Patent and Trademark Office, USPTO, Examiners, 100 for each. SB 23 is supposed to reduce the three to five year normal examination period. Doubtful; that pile is job security for Federal bureaucrats. They know how to milk this cash cow.

Each of my patent filings generated 600 pages of correspondence from these folks. All are cranky. They pick fights. One rejected my application because I had not defined Claims in “steps.” I searched their system to find 80% of all patents granted did not include the word “step” and it has no synonym! They relented, but stuck me for re-filing fees.

In another filing I called for a fermentate, “must,” to be chilled in an underground tank to reduce energy to separate butanol. The Examiner rejected my application because Spanish Sherry had been stored in “solera,” barrels in caves! I have been to Jerez, Spain and learned caves were cheap, cold storage not for decanting, but “casting” yeast. Many letters and phone calls to USPTO superiors got reinstatement, more fees, of course.

On my next filing an Examiner called objecting to my not having a patent attorney. I replied I had one who had been Head of the Patent Department of a major corporation for 31 years, but he made many mistakes and violated our partnership agreement so I fired him.

I had done a study of 250 patents where I have expertise: 25% prepared by inventors were perfect in language, concept and science. Every attorney written patent had at least one error in language, concept and science plus three were provable frauds! While reciting those numbers I heard a “click.” I got that patent without additional fees.

If they really want to accelerate the patent process they will pay Examiners $500 for each patent examined. They are typically ten pages of text and a few of drawings. That stack will vanish in a few months in spite of the new patent bill.

Adrian Vance

Bachmann 1, Ethics 0

In debating Perry, Bachmannn called him out on his executive order that all school children in Texas receive the HPV vaccine. Fair enough, since this is reasonably a contention of philosophy. However, she couldn't leave it there; she had to add the vaccine caused mental retardation.

To be accurate, she said a mother came up to her after a speech, and told her that the vaccine had cause her child to become mentally retarded. Gives Bachmann squirm room while compounding the point against Perry.

Chances are overwhelming the vaccine did not cause retardation, assuming the mother even exists, but correlation is not causation. She did not, of course, cover the factoid that any Texas parent could have opted out of the inoculation. She did let the assertion remain that HPV vaccinations can cause mental retardation, even though CDC lists the worst side effects as a rash around the inoculation site. She also did not bring up the factoid that her own children had to comply with Wisconsin's mandatory inoculation requirements to enter school.

Because of her assertions, how many parents--dozens, hundreds, thousands?--will not have their daughters vaccinated, leading in twenty or forty years to how many--dozens, hundreds, thousands?--of premature, unnecessary deaths. Bachmann will not be held responsible, and even the parents may not remember their irresponsible decision or illogical reason why their daughter died prematurely.

However, Bachmann, for a shallow political point, contributed to those premature deaths. If she is this ethically unconstrained with but the power of a microphone, I would not care to see her further empowered.

American Stasi

Read this account of a lady detained on 9/11, then tell me who won the War on Terror. The Patriot Act was enacted five days after 9/11, reputedly having been written by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their ilk, for continuity of the country after atomic attack. If its actions instead remind one of the East German Stasi, there might be reason.

http://shebshi.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/some-real-shock-and-awe-racially-profiled-and-cuffed-in-detroit/

Entitlement, My Ass!

Not only do workers contribute to Social Security; their employers do, too. It totals 15.3% of income before taxes. If a worker averaged $30K over his or her working years, the total is close to $220,500.

Calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (worker’s and employer's contributions) at 5% interest after 49 years of working gives $892,919.98. Withdrawing 3% per year, provides one $26,787.60 per year, which would last better than 30 years (say from age 65 to 95) and that's with no interest! Purchasing an annuity paying 4% per year, gives a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.

The average worker gets half that! The folks in Washington operate a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff! And they call it an entitlement!

Just because they spent all the money does NOT make it a handout or charity. Bad investment, maybe, but that is why they make it mandatory.

But what really, really tics me off: My kids and grandkids generation now have to pay so I can draw my returns on investment. You "leaders" have stolen from me, now steal from them. Madhoff got 150 years for $60 billion; how much should you get?

What Our Leadership Has Wroth

This is an essay in progress. In the end, it will be much longer, contain references, and cover the nitty gritty to demonstrate my contentions. I also hope to have suggestions of what each of us might do to protect ourselves and to even correct the situation.

The political and bureaucratic leadership of the United States is responsible for this by screwing with the economy without end and spending monies they did not have. They didn't do it on purpose, but accomplished it with thousands of things, because they did not know they could kill it.

Basically, what they have done is allow whoever would donate to them to suck the country dry, and finally, in the case of banks, act flagrantly against the interests of the citizens without limit or fear of punitive redress. Fortunately a few state Attorneys General did not get the word, so are pursuing the "banksters" in spite of federal discouragement. One might notice that after the banksters trashed the world economy, none were even charged. Instead, trillions were made available so they would not self-destruct.

Now the government leaders have no clue what to do to correct it, and even would deny they did it.

Government lying about debt crisis!

by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 7:30am

Do you believe what government officials and experts are saying about the debt crisis?

If so, you're taking your financial life into your hands.

Just consider how many times they've been wrong, issued deliberately misleading statements, or simply lied:

In 2007, they swore on a stack of Bibles that the debt crisis was limited to subprime mortgages.

But the crisis promptly spread to all kinds of mortgages, ripping through giant mortgage lenders like Countrywide, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

In 2008, they admitted it had spread, but swore that it was strictly contained to the housing and mortgage sector.

But in a few short months, it had enveloped commercial paper, money markets, and nearly all of Wall Street. Nearly every one of America's largest banks either failed or came within a hair of insolvency.

In late 2009, they rescued the bankrupt banks and mortgage lenders using the $700 billion in emergency capital approved under the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP). Then, they ran deliberately lenient "stress tests" on the biggest banks to "prove" to the public that the emergency had passed.

But with the government now assuming liability for trillions of mortgages and other bank obligations, they transformed a Wall Street debt disaster into an even larger Washington debt disaster: The federal deficit ballooned to four times its pre-crisis size. And in the euro zone, where governments had also pumped massive sums into bankrupt banks, the weakest countries like Greece began to collapse.

In 2010, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund put together a sovereign debt rescue package that was even larger than TARP. They pulled Greece from the precipice and vowed never to let the contagion reel out of control.

But within a few short months, the contagion toppled Ireland and Portugal ... threatened a similar fate for Spain, Italy, and Belgium ... and even raised serious questions about the financial fate of the two largest economies in the euro zone — France and Germany.

Clearly, each outbreak of the contagion, each government rescue, and each new happy-talk pronouncement has merely spawned a bigger disaster, impacting bigger institutions ... gutting the portfolios of more investors ... and ruining the lives of millions more Americans.

Now, here we are halfway into 2011 and they're at it again — this time with a complete package of misleading statements and lies that make all previous ones seem candid by comparison.

Lie #1. They're again saying that the debt crisis of 2008-09 is "history."
The truth: The core cause of the crisis — the gigantic pyramid of high-risk derivatives — has never gone away.

Quite the contrary, the pile-up of derivatives on the books of major U.S. banks is now much larger — $244 trillion, compared to less than $200 trillion before the debt crisis, according to the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

Lie #2. They say that America's largest banks have virtually no exposure to a Greek debt default or a broader European sovereign debt crisis.
The truth: All major European and U.S. banks are linked through an even larger global network of derivatives, now representing more than $600 trillion, according to the Bank of International Settlements.

Therefore, even though U.S. banks may not hold large amounts of European debts themselves, they are directly exposed to European banks that do hold large amounts of loans to Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and others in jeopardy.

Lie #3. They insist that America's largest banks are safe.

The truth: The largest U.S. banks continue to hold nearly all of the derivatives in the country.

Goldman Sachs has $44.9 trillion in derivatives.
Bank of America has $52.5 trillion.
Citibank has $54.1 trillion.
And JPMorgan Chase towers over all others with $79.5 trillion of these potentially dangerous investments.

In total, JPMorgan, Goldman, Citibank, and the BofA alone are exposed to $234.7 trillion in derivatives. In contrast, among the thousands of other U.S. banks, the grand total of derivatives is a meager $9.3 trillion. In other words, these four banks are exposed to more than 25 times the sum total of all derivatives held by every other bank in the United States.

Never before has so much financial power — and risk — been concentrated in the hands of so few!

Yes, these numbers, reflecting the "notional" value of the financial instruments at play, are far larger than the actual amounts invested. But still, the risks are huge ...

The derivatives held by Bank of America are 36 times larger than TOTAL assets;
At JPMorgan Chase, they're 46.1 times larger than the assets;
At Citibank, 46.6 times larger; and
At Goldman Sachs Bank, a shocking 533 times larger!

Yes, in recent months, some banks have reduced somewhat their exposure to defaults by their counterparties. But here again, the exposure remains massive: According to the OCC, for each dollar of capital ...

Bank of America has $1.82 in credit exposure to derivatives;
Citibank also has $1.82;
JPMorgan Chase has $2.75; and
Goldman Sachs is, again, at the greatest risk of all — with $7.81 in credit exposure for each dollar of capital.

That means that if JPMorgan's counterparties defaulted on 36% of their derivatives, every last dime of the company's capital would be wiped out. And at Goldman Sachs, defaults on just 13% of its derivatives would wipe out its capital.
Lie #4. Misinformation about the government's supersized debts is equally egregious. They want you to believe that, although large, the government's debts are far below the danger zone — thought to be around 100% of GDP.

The truth: According to the Fed's latest Flow of Funds report, the U.S. Treasury owes a total of $9.6 trillion, 64% of GDP, which isn't too bad. But the U.S. government is also responsible for $7.6 trillion in debts owed by government agencies, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The U.S. government's total debt burden: $17.2 trillion or 115% of GDP — similar or WORSE than that of countries like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain!
Lie #5. They argue that America is special because it controls the world's dominant reserve currency.

The truth: Yes, that gives Washington the ability to print money with impunity ... press other rich countries to accept its debts ... and borrow huge amounts abroad to finance its deficits. But it's more of a curse than a blessing!

It means that, more so than any other major nation, the U.S. government is beholden to investors overseas — often the same investors who have repeatedly attacked countries like Greece and Ireland. Ultimately, that could make the U.S. even more vulnerable than Europe.

The EPA's War on Jobs: Coal is from Earth, Lisa Jackson is from mercury

President Obama's jobs council will make its first recommendations today on lifting hiring and strengthening the economy. Too bad the message doesn't seem to be reaching the Administration's regulators, in particular the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA is currently conducting a campaign against coal-fired power and one of its most destructive weapons is a pending regulation to limit mercury and other hazardous air pollutants like dioxins or acid gases that power plants emit. The 946-page rule mandates that utilities install "maximum achievable control technology" under the Clean Air Act-and even by the EPA's lowball estimates, it is the most expensive rule in the agency's history.

In 1990, Congress gave the EPA discretion to decide if mercury regulation is "necessary and appropriate," and the Clinton Administration did so in its final days. The Bush Administration created a modest mercury program, only to have it overturned by an appeals court on technical grounds in its final days. The case was still in litigation when Mr. Obama took office, and his appointees used the opening to strafe the power industry, proposing a much more stringent rule.

The EPA issued the utility rule in March, with only 60 days for public comment. Basic administrative practice usually affords between 120 and 180 days, especially for complex or costly regulations of this scale. The proposal was obviously rushed, with numerous errors like overstating U.S. mercury emissions by a factor of 1,000. The word in Washington is that the openly politicized process unsettled even the EPA's career staff.

The agency estimates that the utility rule will cost $10.9 billion annually but will yield as much as $140 billion in total health and environmental benefits. Sounds like a deal. But most of those alleged benefits are indirect-i.e., not from the mercury reductions that the rule is supposed to be for. Rather, they come from pollutants ("airborne particles") that the EPA already regulates under other parts of the Clean Air Act. A good analogy is a corporation double-counting revenue.

According to the EPA's own numbers, every dollar in direct benefits costs $1,847. The reason is that electric generation-yes, even demon coal-results in negligible quantities of air pollutants like mercury. And mercury is on the decline: In 2005, the entire U.S. coal fleet emitted 26% less than the EPA predicted.

The real goal of the EPA's rule is to shut down fossil fuel electric power in the name of climate change. The consensus estimate in the private sector is that the utility rule and eight others on the EPA docket will force the retirement of 60 out of the country's current 340 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity. Reliability downgrades will hit the South and Midwest where coal energy is concentrated. American Electric Power recently announced that the rules will force it to shut down five plants in West Virginia and Ohio, a quarter of its coal fleet.

The power industry estimates that the true costs of the utility rule will far exceed the EPA estimates, which of course will be passed to consumers and businesses as higher prices. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, normally a White House union ally, says the rule will destroy 50,000 jobs and another 200,000 down the supply chain. That's more jobs lost than if Boeing went bust.

Astonishingly, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson claimed in March that the utility rule is "expected to create jobs," because it will "increase demand for pollution control technology" and "new workers will be needed to install, operate, and maintain" it. In other words, the government should harm an industry and force it to ruin working assets so maybe other people can clean up the mess.

Such theories help explain why the economic recovery and job creation are far weaker than they ought to be, but the good news is that even many Democrats are beginning to push back against the EPA's willful damage. The least Congress can do is force the EPA to delay the final utility rule to allow for more public debate, though a better option would be to junk it.

Katie Brown

Church of Global Warming

Church of Global Warming, Part 1

Shivering and Sweltering in the Dark

First, let me differ in defining environmentalists from greeners in my book. Environmentalists are the people for a cleaner earth and have my thanks and respect.

http://ransrants.blogspot.com/2010/04/convenient-truth.html

Greeners are the scammers that are riding that movement for their own ends and enrichment. Greeners sue any and every energy project to prevent, delay or make it more expensive. Recently they have sued California trying to prevent a solar generator in the Mojave Desert, not to mention a power line to San Diego to carry power.

I also do not lump coal, oil, and nuclear together. Oil power plants are almost gone; 95% of them have been converted to natural gas for economic reasons. Coal vs. nuclear I have covered in a blog:

http://ransrants.blogspot.com/2010/04/unconsidered-consequences.html

The latest generation of nuclear reactors are even safer but not considered by many including the US.

http://ransrants.blogspot.com/2011/01/thorium-reactors-and-sputternik-moments.html

Wind power is a scam. Spain went for it big and a Spanish economist pointed out it cost 2.2 jobs for every green job created, and the green jobs were government subsidized so are going away as Spain downsizes their budget.

The Danes went big for wind power and now have the highest-cost power in Europe. The secret though is that when becalmed, there is an undersea cable bringing Norse hydroelectric power.

The UK has built an extensive net of wind machines originally thought to produce and average of 27% of their max capacity. Experience has been much less than this figure, with an average of 9 months out of 26 being less than 10%.

A study projected the wind machines to replace the 2400 MW nuclear generator outside of Dallas-Fort Worth would cover 20% of Texas and still would have left them shivering or sweltering the dark when Texas is becalmed in mid-Summer or Winter.

In other words, not only is wind expensive, it must be duplicated in capacity by some other reliable source, thus making it even more and absurdly expensive. The reason most want to build wind machines is the $23 per kilowatt US government subsidy (plus often additional from the state). There is no government subsidy for maintaining and operating them, so many machines become abandoned after breaking. California and Hawaii have this problem.

T Boone Pickens wanting to build a few billion dollars of these machines adds new meaning to "Boonedoggle" (sic).

The future holds promise for alternative power should thin-film solar become cheap enough to go on peoples' roof. It's not there yet. I read an article yesterday that would bring it down to 15-cents per KWh, but coal now comes in at 8-cents per KWh. The real idea behind Cap-and-Trade was to raise the price of coal to make solar competitive, not to mention allowing someone to enhance revenues equal to everyone's current power bill.

Other alternatives exist, but I doubt one is moving civilization backwards. Power is civilization. I am not opposed to alternative power; I am opposed to shivering and sweltering in the dark

Liberals vs. Conservatives per Neal Boortz

Liberals operate from emotion and feelings.
Conservatives operate from logic and facts.

Liberals view people in terms of group membership.
Conservatives view people as individuals.

Liberals think government made America great.
Conservatives think freedom made America great.

Liberals think people are too stupid to be free.
Conservatives think people should be free.

Tornadoes and Global Warming

John Coleman on the state of global warming

There is a story I heard that I keep thinking about. It really underlines the problem I have in trying to counter the bad science behind the global warming scare predictions. So here is the story:

A group of over 200 environmentalists were in an auditorium listening to a symposium about climate change, i.e. global warming or climate disruption. One of the speakers asked, “If I could instantly produce a genie with a magic wand to stand here before you today. And if, that genie could wave his magic wand and wall-la….carbon dioxide would no longer be a greenhouse gas that produced uncontrollable global warming….How many in this room would be happy, satisfied and pleased?” Two people out of two hundred hesitatingly raised their hands. Of the others, some smirked, some laughed and some yelled out, “No, no. Hell no.”

I cannot testify that this event actually occurred. But, I heard it as though it was a truthful report. In any case it haunts me because it demonstrates what I perceive to be something akin to the actual state of affairs in our efforts to quiet the Algorian scare predictions about the consequences of global warming. There are large segments of the population that believe the global warming pronouncements. They have heard them over and over again from people they trust and respect, in school, on television, in the news and in their communities.

They have become “believers”, not unlike those who believe in a set of religious beliefs. All good Democrats believe in global warming, after all, it is the science of one of their key heroes, former Vice President and Senator Al Gore. And all good environmentalists are aboard the global warming band wagon. And, for all of them, the Agenda is what is important. Their Agenda is to eliminate fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine from our civilization. The carbon dioxide, CO2, thing is simply the means to the end. And if the means is not true; who cares. It is only the Agenda that is important. To all of these people, my effort to debunk the CO2 greenhouse gas science is irrelevant.

When I present my scientific arguments in a speech, their common reaction, “so what” and they ask me, even if you are right, isn’t the change to clean energy still the best move for our society? When I make my argument in response, that I also favor alternate energy, but that it will be thirty to fifty years before it can replace fossil fuels as the primary source of power for our civilization and that alternate energy in its current state of development is not economically viable, they doubt my facts. They have heard the hype and bought the dream without stopping to absorb the reality.

Next, when they realize they have not persuaded me to join their point of view, they challenge me with “And, what if it turns out that you are wrong and Al Gore is right? Your argument could cost us everything as climate change makes the Earth unlivable. So let’s just eliminate the greenhouse gases as insurance.” I argue back that the insurance will financially destroy us, wreck our way of life and that because I am right about the science, the move to alternate energy will not make an iota difference in our climate.

At this point, they dismiss me a stupid, old heretic.

My only option is to keep trying. That is why I make the new videos like the one posted on February 22nd. But, I am frustrated and not optimistic about penetrating our scientific institutions and organizations that are in the control of their well paid scientists and persuading them to reconsider the roll of carbon dioxide and accept climate reality. What are the odds they will “see the light” and abandon their richly rewarding global warming positions? Nil, I fear.

It appears, as of now, victory, if it were to come, would be on a political level, not a scientific one. Just as “the climate according to Al Gore” has become the Democrat Party mantra, “global warming is not real” has become the rally call of the Republican Party. As a Journalist (I am a member of the television news team at KUSI-TV) I try hard to avoid taking political positions. For instance, I pass on invitations to speak at political events even when handsome stipends are offered.

So I keep focused on the bad science behind global warming. If my team (There are over 31,000 scientists on my team) can make headway in correcting the science, then I will be happy to let the politics, environmentalism and alternate energy movement fight the policy battles without me.

John Coleman

Associated climate kinks: http://www.kusi.com/story/13257602/global-warming-links

FBI Translator Submitted Report Entitled "Kamikaze Pilots" to Bureau 5 Months Before 9/11 Warning of Al Qaeda Attacks on U.S. Cities

FBI Translator Submitted Report Entitled "Kamikaze Pilots" to Bureau 5 Months Before 9/11 Warning of Al Qaeda Attacks on U.S. Cities
Submitted by George Washington on 02/18/2011 00:25 -0500

Afghanistan Department of Justice FBI Middle East MSNBC national intelligence national security New York Times Testimony Tribune White House World Trade

→ Washington’s Blog

According to newly-declassified documents (and see this), an FBI translator filed a report with the Bureau entitled "Kamikaze Pilots", warning of an al-Qaeda plot to attack America in a suicide mission involving planes within the near future.

As Sibel Edmonds (herself a former FBI translator) wrote last month:



The memorandum [prepared by the 9/11 Commission], after establishing [Former FBI translator Behrooz Sarshar's] credibility and vaguely referring to his documented and witnessed testimony regarding specific tip(s) provided to the FBI in April and June 2001 regarding planned imminent "Kamikaze Pilots" attacks targeting major cities in the United States, leaves out the entire testimony. This testimony was also entirely left out of the Commission's final report released in July 2004.
Behrooz Sarshar worked as a GS 12 language specialist with Top Secret Clearance at the FBI Washington Field Office. After leaving the FBI in 2002, he provided his testimony on "Kamikaze Pilots" to several Congressional offices and investigators, including staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Committee's leading Democrat at the time, Senator Patrick Leahy, and the Justice Department's Inspector General Office. The congressional sources familiar with Mr. Sarshar's case and briefing found him and his report credible:
A former Grassley investigator says he found Sarshar credible, too. "We thought he was a pretty credible guy," said former Senate Judiciary Committee investigator Kris Kolesnik.
In April and June of 2001 a long-term FBI informant told two FBI agents from the Washington field office that his sources in Afghanistan had provided him with information regarding a terrorist plot to attack the US in a suicide mission involving airplanes. Mr. Sarshar acted as an interpreter at both meetings after which the case agents filed a report (on 302 Forms) with their squad supervisor.....





***

The 9/11 Commissioners had initially refused to interview Mr. Sarshar. He was one of several witnesses from the intelligence and law enforcement organizations with relevant testimonies and reports who were denied access to the commission (the ones that we know of). It was only after pressure from members of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee and memorandums from the congressional offices that the commission reluctantly agreed to interview Mr. Sarshar. However, his entire testimony was omitted from their final report. According to a Chicago Tribune investigative reporter even FBI Director Mueller appeared baffled by the Commission's lack of inquiry into this particular case:
FBI Director Robert Mueller, who expected to be asked about the case during an appearance before the commission in April, was surprised when the commissioners never raised the question, according to aides.
***

During my short tenure with the Bureau, I was briefed about this case by not only Mr. Sarshar but other firsthand witnesses, and I saw the actual 302 forms filed with the unit's squad supervisor (FBI language specialists get to keep a copy of their reports/forms).

***
I believe not only the families of the September 11th attacks but every American has the right to know about this case. They need to know that this significant report was completely censored by a quasi commission, that this is one of many cases that were omitted from this staged and rehearsed show to pacify the public's need to know, and that there never was any real investigation into this horrific event used in reshaping not only our country, but the entire world.
Sibel Edmonds herself has been deemed credible by the Department of Justice's Inspector General, several senators (free subscription required), and a coalition of prominent conservative and liberal groups.

Edmonds says that the government was provided with information about the planned attacks, including the fact that the attacks would be carried out using airplanes ("I saw papers that show US knew al-Qaeda would attack cities with airplanes"), and some information about date ranges and targets.

But two FBI translators' claims cannot possibly discredit the claims of the Bush administration that terrorists crashing planes into buildings was not foreseeable, right?

Corroborating Evidence

In fact, according to MSNBC, "There have been a slew of reports over the past decade of plots to use planes to strike American targets".

In 1994, the government received information that international terrorists "had seriously considered the use of airplanes as a means of carrying out terrorist attacks" (see also this article).

According to the New York Times, "The F.B.I. had been aware for several years that Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network were training pilots in the United States ...."

In 1998, U.S. officials received reports concerning a "Bin Laden plot involving aircraft in the New York and Washington, areas." Officials received reports that al Qaeda was trying to establish an operative cell in the United States and that bin Laden was attempting to recruit a group of five to seven young men from the United States to travel to the Middle East for training in conjunction with his plans to strike U.S. domestic targets.

Indeed, the report concluded that "a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane . . . into the World Trade Center".

A 1999 report for the National Intelligence Council warned that fanatics loyal to bin Laden might try to hijack a jetliner and fly it into the Pentagon.

There were extraordinarily high terrorist attack threat levels in the summer of 2001, involving threats of attack within the U.S., and the U.S. government knew there were Al-Qaeda cells within the U.S. (or watch the video here).

In July 2001, a briefing prepared for senior government officials warned of "a significant terrorist attack against U.S. and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties ... (it) will occur with little or no warning.".

Shortly afterwards, the Attorney General stopped flying commercial aircraft within the United States based on a threat assessment by the FBI.

FBI agents recommended to FBI headquarters, in July 2001, an urgent nationwide review of flight schools regarding terrorism, and mentioned Bin Laden by name.

2 months before 9/11, intelligence services believed that Bin Laden intended to crash airplanes into the G8 Summit in order to kill President Bush and other world leaders. Condoleezza Rice was very focused on this threat to President Bush.

A pre-9/11 National Intelligence Estimate was entitled "Islamic Extremists Learn to Fly", and was apparently about Islamic people taking classes at U.S. flight schools.

The Federal Aviation Administration “had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon,” and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking.

President Bush was told in August 2001 that supporters of Bin Laden planned an attack within the U.S. with explosives and that they wanted to hijack airplanes.

A month before 9/11, the CIA sent a message to the Federal Aviation Administration warning of a possible hijacking "or an act of sabotage against a commercial airliner".

"Israeli intelligence officials say that they warned their counterparts in the United States [in August 2001] that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent."

The August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief was entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US".

According to National Public Radio, the former CIA Director had warned congress shortly before 9/11 "that there could be an attack, an imminent attack, on the United States of this nature. So this is not entirely unexpected".

U.S. intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that Bin Laden's terrorist network might try to hijack American planes, and that information prompted administration officials to issue a private warning to transportation officials and national security agencies.

It was widely known within the FBI shortly before 9/11 that an imminent attack was planned on lower Manhattan.

An employee who worked in the Twin Towers stated "How could they let this happen? They knew this building was a target. Over the past few weeks we'd been evacuated a number of times, which is unusual. I think they had an inkling something was going on".

And a guard who worked in the world trade center stated that "officials had recently taken steps to secure the towers against aerial attacks".

On September 6, 2001, Condoleezza Rice was warned that a terrorist attack inside the United States was imminent.

Also on September 6th, author Salman Rushdie was banned by US authorities from taking internal US flights; the FAA told his publisher the reason was that it had “intelligence of something about to happen”.

The National Security Agency and the FBI were both independently listening in on the phone calls between the supposed mastermind of the attacks and the lead hijacker. Indeed, the FBI built its own antenna in Madagascar specifically to listen in on the mastermind's phone calls. The day before 9/11, the mastermind told the lead hijacker "tomorrow is zero hour" and gave final approval for the attacks. The NSA intercepted the message that day and the FBI was likely also monitoring the mastermind's phone calls. (The NSA claims that it did not translate the intercept until September 12th; however, the above-mentioned FBI translator said that she was frequently ordered to falsify dates of translations regarding 9/11).

Newsweek stated "On Sept. 10, NEWSWEEK has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns" (pay-per-view; cached version of article here).

9/11 family member and "Jersey Girl" Patty Casazza was told by whistleblowers that -- before 9/11 -- the government knew the exact day, the type of attack, and the targets.

The Military Had Drilled for Attacks Such as 9/11

Indeed, the military had actually drilled for aerial attacks with planes.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the military air defense agency responsible for protecting the U.S. mainland, had run drills for several years of planes being used as weapons against the World Trade Center and other U.S. high-profile buildings, and "numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft". In other words, drills using REAL AIRCRAFT simulating terrorist attacks crashing jets into buildings, including the twin towers, were run.

And the military had conducted numerous drills of planes crashing into the Pentagon. For example, see this official military website showing a military drill conducted in 2000 using miniatures; this article concerning a May 2001 exercise of a plane crashing into the Pentagon (see also this article and this one); and this article about yet another drill of a plane hitting the Pentagon from August 2001.

The military had also run war games involving multiple, simultaneous hijackings (first paragraph), so this aspect of 9/11 was not as overwhelming as we have been led to believe.

See this short excerpt of a Peter Jennings newscast on 9/11 (excuse the music and subtitles).

There are literally hundreds of further examples of facts which tend to show that 9/11 was foreseeable (see this timeline for additional information).

If It Wasn't Foreseeable Before, It Was Then ...

Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta testified to the 9/11 Commission:

"During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President … the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?"





(this testimony is confirmed here and here).

So even if 9/11 wasn't foreseeable before 9/11, it was foreseeable to Dick Cheney - the man in charge of all counter-terrorism exercises, activities and responses on 9/11 (see this Department of State announcement, this CNN article and this essay) - as the plane was still 50 miles away from the Pentagon.

But What Do High-Level Officials Say?

In addition to the former CIA director and other credible witnesses discussed above, many high-level officials have gone on record raising questions concerning the foreseeability of the attacks:

Former 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland said "As each day goes by, we learn that this government knew a whole lot more about these terrorists before Sept. 11 than it has ever admitted" (he also said, when he resigned from the 9/11 Commission: "It is a national scandal"; "This investigation is now compromised"; and "One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up".)

The former head of the Department of Homeland Security (then a top justice department terrorism prosecutor) said "As of Sept. 10th, each of us knew everything we needed to know to tell us there was a possibility of what happened on Sept. 11th . . . We knew the World Trade Center was a target . . . We knew an airplane could be used as a weapon."

Then-ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the joint intelligence committee that investigated 9/11 stated "They don't have any excuse because the information was in their lap, and they didn't do anything to prevent it"

Then-current chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee was "not surprised there was an attack ...."

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said "very serious questions have been raised about what they [U.S. government officials] knew beforehand." See this, this and this.

Former White House counsel John Dean stated "It seems very probable that those in the White House knew much more than they have admitted . . . After pulling together the information in the 9/11 Report, it is understandable why Bush is stonewalling. It is not very difficult to deduce what the president knew, and when he knew it [Dean is echoing the questions asked by Watergate prosecutors]. And the portrait that results is devastating."

A British member of Parliament said "It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks . . . . It had been known as early as 1996 that there were plans to hit Washington targets with airplanes. Then in 1999 a US national intelligence council report noted that "al-Qaida suicide bombers could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House.'"

A 24-year Air Force veteran and former Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the Defense Language Institute said "Of course Bush knew about the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism".

U.S. General, Commanding General of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, decorated with the Bronze Star, Silver Star, and Purple Heart (General Wesley Clark) said "We've never finished the investigation of 9/11 and whether the administration actually misused the intelligence information it had. The evidence seems pretty clear to me. I've seen that for a long time".

Former Federal Prosecutor, Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan; former U.S. Army Intelligence officer, and currently a widely-sought media commentator on terrorism and intelligence services (John Loftus) says "The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defense of incompetence".

The Group Director on matters of national security in the U.S. Government Accountability Office said that President Bush did not respond to unprecedented warnings of the 9/11 disaster and conducted a massive cover-up instead of accepting responsibility.

Obviously, given the above, terrorists crashing planes into buildings was foreseeable.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/fbi-translator-submitted-report-entitled-kamikaze-pilots-bureau-5-months-911-warning-al-qaed?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+zerohedge/feed+(zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline,+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero)

The Bond Market Bust of the Early 1930s

by J. Irving Weiss (1908 - 1997)

In the early 1930s, I had one of the greatest income opportunities in history.

I could have gotten high, juicy, double-digit yields on the best bonds of the strongest companies in America. And I could have locked in those high returns for 20 or 30 years with virtually no inflation.

The yields on guaranteed government bonds were not as high, of course. But even there, the income opportunity was unusual.

Unfortunately, I missed it entirely. I made the mistake of believing the textbook theory on interest rates.

That theory was based almost entirely on the economy and inflation. When we had more growth and inflation, interest rates were supposed to go up. When we had less growth and inflation, rates were supposed to go down.

Nobody looked at interest rates as separate and apart from growth or inflation, and neither did I.

Boy, was I in for a big surprise! In fact, just as I began to watch rates more carefully, every single thing I had read about them went by the wayside.

Here's what happened: After the Crash of 1929, interest rates fell sharply, which was to be expected, because of deflation.

But then, something absolutely astounding took place: Although we were still in a deflationary era, although the economy was still sinking, interest rates began to surge dramatically.

The immediate reason: Bond markets collapsed.

However, in the early 1930s, when I saw rates surging, I didn't understand the cause. It didn't make sense because we had deflation. And with deflation, the textbooks said interest rates were supposed to go down.

So I asked myself: Was inflation coming back? Did I read the textbooks upside down? The answer to both questions was a flat "no." Yields were surging because bond prices were crashing, just like stocks. And that's when I began to look at interest rates as a powerful fundamental force in their own right, separate from the economy or inflation.

The yields on low-grade corporate bonds were the first to surge as their prices plunged. It was like an aftershock from the stock market crash.

This made sense because these were bad bonds and they traded almost like common stocks. They were issued by companies that were expected to default on their payments; and a lot of the companies did just that. So it was natural that their bonds should fall in value or even become worthless.

As always, the lower the prices, the higher the yields. And wow! Did those yields surge! They went to 15 percent, 20 percent, 30 percent, even 45 percent. But what good was it if you lost your principal?

Then high-grade corporate bonds also got hit hard. Investors feared that any company — regardless of rating — could go belly-up, and they were right!

At some companies, finances deteriorated so quickly that, by the time the analysts got around to downgrading them, they were already in the bankruptcy courts. As the price of these high-grade corporate bonds crashed, their yields surged.

And amazingly, they surged beyond their 1929 highs. Someone was obviously selling the heck out of them. But who?

You'd think that at least government-guaranteed Treasury bonds would be spared from this selling panic. They weren't. Investors sold them aggressively, driving their prices to new lows, following in the path of corporate bonds. Yields surged.

Where was all the selling coming from? One source was the U.S. Treasury itself. In the sinking economy, the government's tax revenues plummeted. So it needed to borrow more to replace the missing revenues. And that meant it had to issue more Treasury bonds — more bond supplies, lower prices, and higher yields.

But that still wasn't enough to explain it. It still didn't tell us what drove interest rates up when every textbook in existence said they should be going down.

It wasn't until later that my brother Al and I figured it out. To understand what was going on, we had to forget about inflation, deflation, money supply, the Federal Reserve, and all the theories economists swore by.

Instead, we looked at bonds like any other kind of investment — no different from stocks or commodities. When investors sold them, they went down in price. When investors bought them, they went up.

These investors didn't give a hoot about textbooks. All they cared about was the fact that they needed cash.

The banks needed cash to meet huge demands by savers withdrawing their money. Businesses needed cash to pay bills. Insurance companies needed cash to pay claims.

So the execs went to their financial VPs to dig up something they could sell off for cash.

"What's this stuff?" they asked.

"They're bonds, sir," came the answer. "They're solid investments — not like stocks."

"Can you sell 'em?"

"Sure we can. But bonds are good for bad times. You shouldn't be selling them now because ..."

"I don't give a damn if they're good, bad, or in between. Sell 'em! Raise cash!"

Thus, tremendous amounts of bonds were dumped on the market. High-grade bonds. Low-grade bonds. Muni bonds. Treasury bonds. It didn't matter what color or denomination. Everywhere, individuals, financial institutions, and businesses were getting rid of their bonds.

If they were low grade or on the verge of default, they got no more than pennies on the dollar. And even with higher grade bonds, many investors were simply throwing the baby out with the bath water, driving prices to new lows.

Looking back, I wish I could have had the foresight to convert my winnings from the stock market crash into the highest grade bonds. On top of the high yields, the purchasing power of the dollar improved. And throughout the entire Depression, bonds outperformed virtually every other investment in the world, with far less risk.

But by the time we had figured it out, the opportunity was gone. As the Depression progressed, rates fell back down again, and only those who had locked them in during that unusual period were able to enjoy the higher incomes. — J. Irving Weiss
-------------------------------
What Will Trigger a Bond Market Bust?

Take your pick (one or more) ...

Trigger #1. Inflation and Inflation Fears. Inflation has been so low for so long, that the complacency on Wall Street and Washington is bordering on the pathological.

Here we are — with massive surges in the price of gold, silver, agricultural commodities, and now, energy to boot — but STILL most bond investors, including the "smartest" banks and insurance companies, don't seem to bat an eyelash.

Here we are — with money supply and inflation surging in China and other emerging markets — and again, virtually no one seems to care.

These price surges are bound to pop up in the U.S. producer and consumer price indexes, which investors DO pay attention to. And when they do, an instant bond market bust is a likely outcome.


Trigger #2. Deficit Inaction. When the Congressional Budget Office recently announced that THIS year's deficit would hit nearly $1.5 trillion, bond prices fell and interest rates rose.

Bond investors knew that the Treasury would have to issue huge new supplies of bonds to finance the deficit. And they knew that big new supplies equal even bigger price declines.

What happens if the deficit balloons to $2 trillion? Another big decline in bond prices!

And what if Obama and Congress continue do little or nothing to make good on their promises of deficit reduction? Still MORE steep price declines!


Trigger #3. Dollar Collapse. Three out of every five dollars financing the U.S. federal deficit now come from foreign investors. Only two out of five come from domestic investors (other than the U.S. government itself).

Heck, the last time America was so dependent on foreign money, Benjamin Franklin was sailing to Paris to beg the French to help finance the Revolutionary War!

What happens next? As long as those foreign investors believe they'll be paid back in dollars that are worth something, they may hang on.

But as soon as they see the value of their dollars collapsing, the only rational response is to dump their holdings — driving bond prices down and interest rates skyward.



Current TBT graphic.

Thorium Reactors and "Sputternik Moments"

The People’s Republic of China has initiated a research and development project in thorium molten-salt reactor technology. A thorium-fueled MSR is best run with uranium-233 fuel, which inevitably contains impurities (uranium-232 and its decay products) that preclude its use in nuclear weapons. Currently there is no US effort to develop a thorium MSR.

The LFTR (TMSR) was first developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers between 1950 and 1975. During the last decade by The Reactor Physics Group of the University of Grenoble has renewed TMSR research. This step is highly rational for the Chinese to take. China appears to have a large thorium reserve, much of it now in the form of rare earth mining tailings. LFTRs as so efficient that they could supply China with all the energy it needs for a period of time that could stretch out for millions of years. LFTRs can be factory built and rapidly deployed in Very large numbers. A large scale LFTR program would enable China to replaced fossil fuel energy sources with nuclear power by 2050, if LFTR development had a 20 year gestation period.

There has been a grass-roots effort underway for over five years to change this. Will the US accept the challenge or allow the Chinese to dominate advanced nuclear technology too? Using a technology invented in the US 40 years ago no less! Here is a true "sputnik moment" but it seems we are destined to tilt at windmills.

http://www.itheo.org/

http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/

I find the "sputnik moment" reference amusing. Forty years ago, we walked on the moon; today, we are just walking. We have one more shuttle mission we can't seem to get off the ground and rely on the Russians to lift our astronauts into space. The Russians said, "No problem." and increased the price from $20 million to $50 million. Seems more like a "sputteringnik moment."

The Legend of the Sky Dragon and Its Mythmakers

The following discussion comes from Chapter 12 of Dr. Martin Hertzberg's recently published book “Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory.”

There is a simple way to tell the difference between propagandists and scientists. If scientists have a theory they search diligently for data that might actually contradict the theory so that they can fully test its validity or refine it. Propagandists, on the other hand, carefully select only the data that might agree with their theory and dutifully ignore any data that disagrees with it.

One of the best examples of the contrast between propagandists and scientists comes from the way the human caused global warming advocates handle the Vostok ice core data from Antarctica (6). The data span the last 420,000 years, and they show some four Glacial Coolings with average temperatures some 6 to 8 C below current values and five Interglacial Warming periods with temperatures some 2 to 4 C above current values. The last warming period in the data is the current one that started some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. The data show a remarkably good correlation between long term variations in temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are at a minimum during the end of Glacial Coolings when temperatures are at a minimum. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are at a maximum when temperatures are at a maximum at the end of Interglacial Warmings. Gore, in his movie and his book, “An Inconvenient Truth”, shows the Vostok data, and uses it to argue that the data prove that high atmospheric CO2 concentrations cause global warming.

Is that an objective evaluation of the Vostok data? Let’s look at what Gore failed to mention. First, the correlation between temperature and CO2 has been going on for about half a million years, long before any significant human production of CO2, which began only about 150 years ago. Thus, it is reasonable to argue that the current increase in CO2 during our current Interglacial Warming, which has been going on for the last 15,000 – 20,000 years, is merely the continuation of a natural process that has nothing whatever to do with human activity. Gore also fails to ask the most logical question: where did all that CO2 come from during those past warming periods when the human production of CO2 was virtually nonexistent? The answer is apparent to knowledgeable scientists: from the same place that the current increase is coming from, from the oceans. The amount of CO2 dissolved in the oceans is some 50 times greater than the amount in the atmosphere. As oceans warm for whatever reason, some of their dissolved CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere, just as your soda pop goes flat and loses its dissolved CO2 as it warms to room temperature even as you pour it into the warmer glass. As oceans cool, CO2 from the atmosphere dissolves back into the oceans, just as soda pop is made by injecting CO2 into cold water.

But the real “clincher” that separates the scientists from the propagandists comes from the most significant fact that Gore fails to mention. The same Vostok data show that changes in temperature always precede the changes in atmospheric CO2 by about 500-1500 years.

The temperature increases or decreases come first, and it is only after 500-1500 years that the CO2 follows. Fig 3 shows the data from the termination of the last Glacial Cooling (Major Glaciation) that ended some 15,000 – 20,000 years ago through the current Interglacial Warming of today. The four instances where the temperature changes precede the CO2 curve are clearly shown. All the Vostok data going back some 420,000 years show exactly the same behavior. Any objective scientist looking at that data would conclude that it is the warming that is causing the CO2 increases, not the other way around as Gore claimed.

It is even more revealing to see how the advocates of the human-caused global warming theory handle this “clincher” of the argument. It is generally agreed that the Vostok cycles of Glacial Coolings and Interglacial Warmings are driven by changes in the parameters of the Earth’s orbital motion about the Sun and its orientation with respect to that orbit; namely, changes in the ellipticity of its orbit, changes in its obliquity (tilt relative to its orbital plane), and the precession of its axis of rotation. These changes are referred to as the Milankovitch cycles, and even the human caused global warming advocates agree that those cycles “trigger” the temperature variations. But the human caused global warming advocates present the following ad hoc contrivance to justify their greenhouse effect theory. The Milankovitch cycles, they say, are “weak” forcings that start the process of Interglacial Warming, but once the oceans begin to release some of their CO2 after 500-1500 years, then the “strong” forcing of “greenhouse warming” takes over to accelerate the warming. That argument is the best example of how propagandists carefully select data that agrees with their theory as they dutifully ignore data that disagrees with it. One need not go any further than to the next Glacial Cooling to expose that fraudulent argument for the artificial contrivance that it really is. Pray tell us then, we slayers of the Sky Dragon ask, what causes the next Glacial Cooling? How can it possibly begin when the CO2 concentration, their “strong” forcing, is at its maximum? How can the “weak” Milankovitch cooling effect possibly overcome that “strong” forcing of the greenhouse effect heating when the CO2 concentration is still at its maximum value at the peak of the Interglacial Warming? The global warmers thus find themselves stuck way out on a limb with that contrived argument. They are stuck there in an everlasting Glacial Warming, with no way to begin the next Glacial Cooling that the data show.

But one has to be sorry for Gore and his friends, for after all, they are in the global warming business. Global cooling is clearly someone else’s job!”

I can think of nothing more inappropriate and insulting to Milankovic than having Hansen speak at a Symposium in his honor.

Changing the Climate of Climate Seances

by Willis Eschenbach

At this point, there’s not much about climate science that is “unequivocal” except that the climate is always changing.

• Don’t try to change the rules of the game in mid-stream. It makes you look desperate, whether you are or not.

• Stop calling people “deniers”, my goodness, after multiple requests that’s just common courtesy and decency, where are your manners? It makes you look surly and uncivilized, whether you are or not.

• Stop avoiding public discussion and debate of your work. You are asking us to spend billions of dollars based on your conclusions. If you won’t bother to defend those conclusions, don’t bother us with them. Refusing to publicly defend your billion dollar claims make it look like you can’t defend them, whether you can or not.

• Stop secretly moving the pea under the walnut shells. You obviously think we are blind, you also clearly believe we wouldn’t remember that you said we have a poor understanding of the climate system. Disabuse yourself of the idea that you are dealing with fools or idiots, and do it immediately. As I have found to my cost, exposing my scientific claims to the cruel basilisk gaze of the internet is like playing chess with Deep Blue … individual processors have different abilities, but overall any faults in my ideas will certainly be exposed. Too many people looking at my ideas from too many sides for much to slip through. Trying anything but absolute honesty on the collective memory and wisdom of the internet makes you look like both a fool and con man, whether you are one or not.

• Write scientific papers that don’t center around words like “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might”. Yes, possibly all of the water molecules in my glass of water might be heading upwards at the same instant, and I could conceivably win the Mega-Ball lottery, and I might still play third base for the New York Yankees, but that is idle speculation that has no place in scientific inquiry. Give us facts, give us uncertainties, but spare us the stuff like “This raises the possibility that by 2050, this could lead to the total dissolution of all inter-atomic bonds …”. Yeah, I suppose it could. So what, should I buy a lottery ticket?

• Stop lauding the pathetic purveyors of failed prophecies. Perhaps you climate guys haven’t noticed, but Paul Ehrlich was not a visionary genius. He was a failure whose only exceptional talent is the making of apocalyptic forecasts that didn’t come true. In any business he would not have lasted one minute past the cratering collapse of his first ridiculous forecast of widespread food riots and worldwide deaths from global famine in the 1980s … but in academia, despite repeating his initial “We’re all gonna crash and burn, end of the world coming up soon, you betcha” prognostication method several more times with no corresponding crashing burning or ending, he’s still a professor at Stanford. Now that’s understandable under tenure rules, you can’t fire him for being a serially unsuccessful doomcaster. But he also appears to be one of your senior AGW thinkers and public representatives, which is totally incomprehensible to me.

His string of predicted global catastrophes that never came anywhere near true was only matched by the inimitable collapses of the prophecies of his wife Anne, and of his cohorts John Holdren and the late Stephen Schneider. I fear we’ll never see their like again, a fearsome foursome who between them never made one single prediction that actually came to pass. Stop using them as your spokesmodels, it doesn’t increase confidence in your claims.

• Enough with the scary scenarios, already. You’ve done the Chicken Little thing to death, give it a rest, it is sooo last century. It makes you look both out-of-date and hysterical whether you are or not.

• Speak out against scientific malfeasance whenever and wherever you see it. This is critical to the restoration of trust. I’m sick of watching climate scientists doing backflips to avoid saying to Lonnie Thompson “Hey, idiot, archive all of your data, you’re ruining all of our reputations!”. The overwhelming silence of mainstream AGW scientists on these matters is one of the (unfortunately numerous) reasons that the public doesn’t trust climate scientists, and justifiably so. You absolutely must clean up your own house to restore public trust, no one else can do it. Speak up. We can’t hear you.

• Stop re-asserting the innocence of you and your friends. It makes you all look guilty, whether you are or not … and since the CRU emails “unequivocally” favor the latter possibility, it makes you look unapologetic as well as guilty. Whether you are or not.

• STOP HIDING THINGS!!! Give your most private data and your most top-secret computer codes directly to your worst enemies and see if they can poke holes in your ideas. If they can’t, then you’re home free. That is true science, not hiding your data and gaming the IPCC rules to your advantage.

• Admit the true uncertainties. The mis-treatment of uncertainty in the IPCC reports, and the underestimation of true uncertainty in climate science in general, is a scandal.

• Scrap the IPCC. It has run its race. Do you truly think that whatever comes out of the next IPCC report will make the slightest difference to the debate? You’ve had four IPCC reports in a row, each one more alarmist than the previous one. You’ve had every environmental organization shilling for you. You’ve had billions of dollars in support, Al Gore alone spent $300 million on advertising and advocacy. You’ve had 25 years to make your case, with huge resources and supercomputers and entire governments on your side, and you are still losing the public debate … after all of that, do you really think another IPCC report will change anything?

If it is another politically driven error-fest like the last one, I don’t think so. And what are the odds of it being an honest assessment of the science? Either way the next IPCC report won’t settle a single discussion, even if it is honest science. Again, Dr. T, you have only yourself and your friends to blame. You used the IPCC to flog bad science like the Hokeyschtick, your friends abused the IPCC to sneak in papers y’all favored and keep out papers you didn’t like, you didn’t check your references so stupid errors were proclaimed as gospel truth, it’s all a matter of record.

Do you truly think that after Climategate, and after the revelations of things like IPCC citations of WWF propaganda pieces as if they were solid science, and after Pachauri’s ludicrous claim that it was “voodoo science” to point out the Himalayan glacier errors, after all that do you think anyone with half a brain still believes the IPCC is some neutral arbiter of climate science whose ex-cathedra pronouncements can be relied upon?

Because if you do think people still believe that, you really should get out more. At this point people don’t trust the IPCC any more than they trust you and your friends. Another IPCC report will be roundly ignored by one side, and cited as inerrant gospel by the other side. How will that help anyone? Forget about the IPCC, it is a meaningless distraction, and get back to the science.

That’s my free advice, Dr. T., and I’m sure it’s worth every penny you paid for it. Look, I don’t think you’re a bad guy. Sadly for you, but fortunately for us, you got caught hanging out with the bad boys who had their hands in the cookie jar. And tragically for everyone, all of you were seduced by “noble cause corruption”. Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s happened to me too, you’re not the first guy to think that the nobility of your cause justified improper actions.

But as far as subsequently proclaiming your innocence and saying that you and your friends did nothing wrong? Sorry, Dr. T, the jury has already come in on that one, and they weren’t distracted by either the nobility of your cause, nor by the unequivocal fact that you and your friends were whitewashed as pure as the driven snow in the investigation done by your other friends … instead, they noted your emails saying things like:

In that regard I don’t think you can ignore it all, as Mike [Mann] suggests as one option, but the response should try to somehow label these guys a[s] lazy and incompetent and unable to do the huge amount of work it takes to construct such a database.

Indeed technology and data handling capabilities have evolved and not everything was saved. So my feeble suggestion is to indeed cast aspersions on their motives and throw in some counter rhetoric. Labeling them as lazy with nothing better to do seems like a good thing to do.

SOURCE: email 1177158252

Yeah, that’s the ticket, that’s how a real scientist defends his scientific claims …

One Light Bulb at a Time

From my son, Buzzy Cox

A physics teacher in high school once told the students that while one grasshopper on the railroad tracks wouldn't slow a train very much, a billion of them would. With that thought in mind, read the following, obviously written by a good American ..

Good idea ... one light bulb at a time ......

Check this out. I can verify this because I was in Lowe's the other day for some reason, and just for the heck of it, I was looking at the hose attachments.. They were all made in China . The next day I was in Ace Hardware, and just for the heck of it, I checked the hose attachments there. They were made in USA . Start looking..

In our current economic situation, every little thing we buy or do affects someone else - even their job. So, after reading this email, I think this lady is on the right track. Let's get behind her!

My grandson likes Hershey's candy. I noticed, though, that it is marked made in Mexico now... I do not buy it any more.
My favorite toothpaste Colgate is made in Mexico .... now I have switched to Crest. You have to read the labels on everything..

This past weekend I was at Kroger. I needed 60 W light bulbs and Bounce dryer sheets. I was in the light bulb aisle and right next to the GE brand I normally buy was an off-brand labeled, "Everyday Value .... " I picked up both types of bulbs and compared the stats - they were the same except for the price.. The GE bulbs were more money than the Everyday Value brand but the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that GE was made in MEXICO and the Everyday Value brand was made in - get ready for this - the USA in a company in Cleveland , Ohio .

So throw out the myth that you cannot find products you use every day that are made right here...

So on to another aisle - Bounce Dryer Sheets...... yep, you guessed it, bounce cost more money and is made in Canada .. The Everyday Value brand was less money and MADE IN THE USA! I did laundry yesterday and the dryer sheets performed just like the Bounce Free I have been using for years and at almost half the price!

My challenge to you is to start reading the labels when you shop for everyday things and see what you can find that is made in the USA - the job you save may be your own or your neighbors!

If you accept the challenge, pass this on to others in your address book so we can all start buying American, one light bulb at a time! Stop buying from overseas companies!

(We should have awakened a decade ago...........)
Let's get with the program...... help our fellow Americans keep their jobs and create more jobs here in the U. S. A. .

Greediest Generation?

Alan Simpson calls seniors the Greediest Generation…
Here’s a response in a letter from a fellow in Montana…

“Hey Alan, let’s get a few things straight…

1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS.

2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).

3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.

4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.

5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills.

6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To add insult to injury, you label us “greedy” for calling “bullshit” on your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU.

1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?

2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?

3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?

4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?

It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators who are “greedy”. It is you and they who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That’s right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.

And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch.”

Peter "Idiot" King (R-NY)

Representative Peter King's solution to the Arizona massacre is to ban arms for 1000 feet of lawmakers. This assures the only armed persons within 1/5th of a mile will be assassins who surely will bring a knife or ice pick since guns are illegal.

Is he that big of an idiot or just thinks his constituents are? If they continue to re-elect him, they are, and truly represented by one of their own.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) seeks to restrict sales of high-capacity ammunition clips like the one Loughner allegedly used in his attack. To work around this, assassins can simply bring two automatics with 15-round clips rather than one with a 30-round clips. Apparently Rep. McCarthy is another faithful representative of the New York electorate, and an fine example offsetting the oft-heard charge that Congress is out of touch with their constituents.

Not that the Constitution means much to those in Congress, judging that they act as if were mere literature if it exists at all, but one asks which part of "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" do they not understand?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of the two tacklers in Tucson was carrying. The young person who apprehended the shooter ran towards the shooting. He exited Safeway confident that he could meet force with force, if needed, to find the shooter had been tackled by an elderly person that would have soon been overpowered had help not arrived. If he had not been carrying, would he have gone towards the shooting, or would the 22-year-old shooter overpowered the elderly person, reloaded and continued killing? Care to bet your life or your loved ones on that answer?

In 1991, in Luby's Cafeteria, Suzanna Hupp was not carrying because, as required by law, she left her handgun in her truck. The shooter drove into the cafeteria, killed 22 and wounded 20 more before police arrived and moved the shooter to suicide. Two of the people lost that day were Ms. Hupp's parents. She ran for the Texas Legislature and got the law forbidding concealed carry overturned. Care to talk to her about stricter gun laws?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Gun is Civilization
by Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.

People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.

The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)