Cluelessness about Fort Hoot shooter's "motivation"

"If our difficulties can be ascribed to something that has happened in the past, they cannot serve as evidence of our present inadequacy and cannot blemish our self-confidence and self-esteem." - Eric Hoffer, "The Passionate State of Mind," (1955)

Joel Raupe

Amazing, isn't it?

And this is worse than not having a clue, this sells cluelessness as an acceptable narrative. Of course, had these killings taken place at the neighborhood Olive Garden, people would claim to have a clue, would they not?

They might ask, yet again, what motivated millions of Germans to join the Nazi comic opera, seventy years ago, and why their officers were offended when, after all was said and done, it was explained to them that "just following orders" was hardly an excuse and made a poor defense.

The Fort Hood "shooter" fits a profile, and along more than one track, of those who join Mass Movements. See a definitive work on the subject, "The True Believer," by Eric Hoffer (1951).

The "readiness for self-sacrifice" is a the big clue. The perception of a "permanently ruined self," incapable of socialization and, perhaps more importantly, lacking the capacity or opportunity for achieving a sense of "unquestioned usefulness," the shooter sought self-annihilation and a promised escape from the burden of responsibility that comes with freedom, by submission to a collective, where choice becomes the prerogative of the collective, especially a collective touched with timeless destiny.

Add to Hoffer the singularly Judeo-Christian view that there is no escape from the responsibility that comes from "knowing good and evil," and the panic that sent Adam and Eve running for the tall grass, suddenly aware of their "nakedness," becomes a picture of the Human Condition, for many.

A pet cat will tease a captured and stunned mouse until the prey is exhausted or dead, literally torturing the animal to death, and no one suggests the cat is doing anything other than its "natural born thing."

But if little Johnny does the same thing we might seek professional help for him.

There's no mystery here. The shooter made a deliberate decision, and coldly, based on the perception of having merged an unwanted self with a collective that cannot die, and cannot be questioned.

It's amazing how so recent a history as that of World War II can be lost on so many, so quickly.

But, for a brief time, in the middle 1960's, Hoffer and his definitive work "The True Believer" was required reading in American High Schools and the Longshoreman philosopher was the subject of a CBS prime time television special where he was interviewed for ninety minutes by Walter Cronkite. He even was awarded the American Freedom Medal in 1982.

His work has been back in print since 2001.

Reality TV star finds fame "elusive"

"Summer of Rage" 2009

A healthy cynicism of government and of those who would fatten their bank accounts at public expense appears justified, as much now as at any other time in our nation's history. The Constitution was drawn up and later amended to make our government subservient to a "eternally vigilant" people, without which the American Experiment would certainly fail.

This principle was based on the "proper study of man," recognizing the corrupting influences of power; that power corrupts and also that those already corrupted by its "heady wine" are drawn again and again, quite naturally, to its addictive flame was mixed into the government's foundation when it was first poured.

On first glance at government in action today, however, you might conclude that government had reached some sort of new immunity from critical oversight. A longer look will dispel that superficial notion, however, and quickly reassure you that, other than its sheer size and scope, governments have not changed very much after all.

What we hear today is an echo of the way things have functioned pretty much from the beginning.

What has changed is the Free Press, which today, in the guise of "Journalism," has gradually been subverted to serve the powerful at the expense of the powerless. And even this is no real change, except perhaps on the label.

If you were able to step free from today into the America of the middle 19th Century the pattern would easily be recognized, and at the same moment it would seem alien. Four and five generations back, at the beginning of the Civil War, every town large enough for a tavern usually had two, three, perhaps four or more "broadsheet" newspapers, for example.

While there was no radio or television there was no shortage of news, and even a rudimentary Internet had begun to branch out across the landscape in the form of Samuel Morse's telegraph.

One big difference would be clearly alien. Each of those broadsheet newspapers operating wherever two or more were gathered were unapologetically partisan in purpose and in message.

Today what some call the "mainstream media" labors under the burden of having to sell information within an illusion of "neutrality." A century and half back, no blue sky could be seen between a political Party and its Press. If you didn't like the message its opposite might be available next door. No one conceived of a "middle ground," in contrast with today's Journalists, to whom a murky middle has become the very language used to spread partisan messages.

At the beginning of Abraham Lincoln's administration in 1861 the nation was already at war with itself. It was more than just "deeply divided." South Carolina, whose sea port at Charleston was the source of two-thirds of the federal government's revenue in the form of tariffs, had already declared independence, citing the Lincoln's election as its cause. It was a "present crisis" before Lincoln took the oath, and a month and half later the nation was in a shooting war with itself.

The Democrat Party of that time was as divided as the nation, setting up the opportunity for the new Republican Party to elect its first President and to consolidate a new base of power. During Lincoln's first year Democrat newspapers in the North were effectively criminalized, as many Democrat office holders and newspaper publishers were thrown into federal stockades without benefit of arraignment. Mobilization of a standing army and the deliberately turned blind eye of Lincoln gave members of his cabinet an excuse to make war on the new Party's enemies.

In 1861 they called it the "Summer of Rage," and it was characterized by official and unofficial organizers of the new Republican Party gathering their own versions of our Flash Mobs to riot, loot and pillage any and all who dared to criticize the new government.

Throughout the course of the war, one that ended with Republicans as the dominant force of a re-worked relationship between the States and Washington, opposition on the home front was effectively silenced.

Whether those methods used by Lincoln were right or wrong is not at issue. Lincoln himself set everything second, including slavery, to preserving the Union. Eventually those methods worked, and the institution of African slavery in the United States was shut down in the bargain.

Any debate on whether those ends justified the means is a waste of time unless the means Lincoln used are one day applied to achieve an end thought as noble.

So, it was a little disquieting to see a popular new regime inaugurated in January 2009, as led by a president so quick to invoke Lincoln at every turn on his first day in office. Aside from not having to travel in disguise, as Lincoln did to evade angry mobs of protesters in Baltimore and elsewhere on his train trip to Inauguration, the president-elect symbolically followed that same path to Washington 148 years later.

He ate the same breakfast as Lincoln did his first day in office and took the Oath on the very same Bible.

Barack Obama's genetic heritage was heralded passionately enough to excuse this symbolism, of course, at a historic moment when a man of African descent became president he quite naturally called on a semi-deified Abraham Lincoln for his blessing. It took a passionless point of view to wonder whether something more than Lincoln's ends was being evoked. Perhaps, as some believed, the 14th President's means were being celebrated as well.

Nothing President Obama has done so far has soothed this disquiet.

On the contrary it sometimes seems as though he were determined to create greater and even greater crisis so those means applied by Lincoln and his Party might excuse a second re-working of relationships, this time between Washington and the American Citizen.

How else can we look on an otherwise insecure-looking intolerance of dissent exhibited by his cabinet? This administration's adolescent and unseemly attacks on FoxNews, which is no different than any other mainstream news outlet in seeking a perspective from a illusory and "balanced" middle ground, are difficult to understand in a Capital City where Franklin Roosevelt once said nothing happens by accident.

Most disquieting of all, however, is the fact that President Obama lacks a domestic war as Lincoln's excuse for silencing dissent.

It would be too narrow, however, to credit someone with being sophisticated enough to remember the model left to us by Lincoln not to also credit him with remembering a wide variety of models from the not-so-distant past, as well. Among those means employed for re-working societies left to us from just the past century alone there are more than enough example from which he might choose.

Angry Young Man

"It's been long known the conveyance of message by language goes far beyond the words. Only seven percent of the message is contained in the literal words, with the remaining ninety-three percent more or less evenly divided between gesture (aka, "body language") and "tone" of voice. A slight plurality is given to the latter, and it is within this area that our "President" has the mastery common to any "two-bit carnival hypnotist."

"Even so, this mastery of Tone is not perfect and his imperfections combined with his Gestures make a majority of what he has to say appear to be very angry, indeed.

"I don't need to turn the sound down on his words or tone to see the man is very angry, and judging now by what little divisive actions he has actually committed to, in Honduras in particularly, but also in his choice of fights in the Congress, also, the direction of his anger is toward this country.

"My guess is the man hates this country, which means he hates the American People, though he is not intelligent enough to know the one follows the other.

"Subconsciously, my guess is that he knows all-too-well the course his anger must take, and who it is who will be effected, and he rationalizes this under some form of logic that makes sense only to him and others among those he makes for appointments and for company.

"The president is, in fact, at war with America and her friends and in full support, with all the resources he presently has at his command, of America's enemies.

"God save the Republic and bless the American people. This is the sad result of the full flower of the atheist Eugenics movement and the direction self-appointed elites of the late 19th century took in adopting the deliberate effort to dumb down people through the Prussian grade school model, and the Experimentalist method as the only permitted philosophy of education.

"God save us indeed. We are in grave danger."

The full thread HERE.

Global Warming 'Science'

It was a startling admission. Prior to passage of "Cap-and-Trade" legislation by the House of Representatives, Mr. Henry Waxman (D, CA), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman and co-sponsor of the bill, in responding to a question from Mr. Joe Barton (R, TX) at a May 22 hearing, admitted the following:

I certainly don't claim that I know everything that's in this bill. I know we left it to ....we relied very heavily on the scientists on the IPCC and others and the consensus they have that there is a problem with global warming, it's having an impact, and that we need to reduce it by the amounts they think we need to achieve in order to avoid some of the consequences. That's what I know, but I don't know the details. I rely on the scientists.

Since then, the House of Representatives has passed and sent to the Senate a major piece of legislation which both Republicans and Democrats agree will heavily tax certain industries, significantly raise prices on energy consumption, and increase the cost of almost all produced goods. President Barack Obama, in a September 22 speech at the United Nations "climate summit," said, "We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act. And we will meet our responsibility to future generations."

Americans have been told that climate change legislation must become law based upon findings by scientists in a group called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If that "science" becomes the justification for all of the forecasted economic pain, doesn't it deserve scrutiny and independent validation?

Mr. Waxman's justification for immediate passage of his legislation consists of two major premises:

1. Recent unprecedented global warming appears underway which a "scientific consensus" deems a major problem.

2. This new global warming is caused primarily by human activity mandating reduction of greenhouse gases, specifically levels of carbon dioxide, to reduce potentially profound and calamitous worldwide effects.

It turns out that work done on several fronts over recent years casts serious doubt upon the IPCC work and, in fact, may make a case for claiming scientific fraud. Let's review the situation.

Background

Since its inception in 1988, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has sought to evaluate the risk of climate change brought about by human activity. There has never been a requirement to also evaluate potential natural causes.

The IPCC has published four major reports over a 19-year period. They claim that a number of mathematical models reveal how "most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in anthropogenic (manmade) greenhouse gas concentrations". They predict dire effects from rising temperatures including major heat waves, heavy rainfalls, and rising ocean sea levels due primarily to loss of land ice and increasing ocean temperatures.

Their reports include a graph derived from mathematical models showing average global temperatures back to 1000 AD. The graph appears relatively flat for over 900 years. Then, about 1920, temperatures begin to rocket upward with but a brief pause around 1970 before heading still higher with no relief in sight. So startling was this graph when it first appeared, it became known as the "Hockey Stick" chart. The IPCC concluded the graph's sudden change in character during the early 20th Century correlated with the introduction and increasing use of fossil fuel energy in that period, and that production of carbon dioxide (CO2) represented the principal man-made greenhouse gas culprit.

Climate Change

In examining any theoretical model purporting to deal with global warming, one must ask: does worldwide climate actually change?. If so, is there something special about the last 60-80 years which must be scrutinized?

Nearly every student of Earth history is aware of the massive amount of geological evidence showing that significant climate changes have been ongoing for over 4 billion years. The last Great Ice Age, for example, blanketed large portions of the planet with thick glaciers and cold temperatures for thousands of years. It persisted until about 12,000 years ago when temperatures, as shown by ice core drilling, rose dramatically some 10 degrees Centigrade in just 2-3 years.

Australian researcher Dr. Robert Carter of James Cook University specializes in studying deep core drillings to observe effects of climate change. He reports that whether one sees global warming or cooling depends on the time period of the observation. After the end of the ice-age period about 12,000 ago, a significant warming occurred. Since that time, there has been gradual cooling, though there have been numerous oscillations. Thus, says Dr. Carter, if one wants to make a case for either global warming or cooling, it matters over what time period one wishes to look.

According to Dr. Carter, for the last 5,000 years beginning approximately 3000 BC, there have been six major warming periods, although the trend in the last 2,000 years has moved toward general cooling. By general cooling, he means each subsequent oscillation has generally seen a lower maximum and a significantly lower minimum than the one before.

Ice core drillings record a very major warming period, with temperatures significantly warmer than at present, around 1100 BC -- about the time of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt -- followed by a significant and rapid cooling perhaps assisted by several major volcanic eruptions in the Mediterranean region. Another warming period began near the start of the Christian epoch and peaked during the period of maximum expansion of the Roman empire (200-300 AD). Contemporary written records tell of wine growing in areas around Scotland -- not possible today. Again, a rapid cooling began about the time of the fall of the Roman Empire and the advent of the Dark Ages which caused widespread famine throughout Europe. The temperature trend reversed again around 900 AD and reached another peak about 300 years later -- called the Medieval Warm Period --when, for example, Viking explorers established major agriculture settlements in a place they named Greenland [1].

Beginning in the 14th Century, another major cool down ushered in what has been called the "Little Ice Age" lasting approximately 400 years. Glacier advances forced the Vikings to abandon their Greenland settlements. Poor crop yields caused food shortages throughout Europe and in early American settlements. In the late 18th and early 19th Century, warming began which has, with the exception of the major 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines, continued throughout the 20th Century until 1998 when world temperatures, as measured by satellite and ground-based sensors, have leveled off and begun to drop.

Thus, significant historical evidence exists indicating there is always a change in climate underway and that, within the context of long-term world history, there appears to be nothing special about the last 60-80 years. So why does the IPCC report such a major discrepancy with other records of climate history? The answer lies in their reliance upon mathematical models -- and specifically one very convenient model.

IPCC Mathematical Models

Mathematical modeling is used throughout our world to help forecast the future in many arenas of life, including economics, biology, medicine, and even climate change. One creates a mathematical model by taking measurements and scientific observations -- which may for one reason or another be in apparent conflict -- and attempt to reconcile them to produce a generalized unified data set which can be used to predict, to some degree of accuracy, future trends.

Mathematicians working with the IPCC possessed a significant set of temperature observations made by weather observations during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, ice core drillings, and tree ring proxies (which reveal temperature trends from rate of tree growth). As described by Canadian economics professor Ross McKictrick, researchers using this data set initially produced a graph published in the 1995 IPCC Second Assessment Report in which the second millennial climate history includes both the Medieval Warm Period as well as a subsequent Little Ice Age (see below).

Remember, the IPCC had been founded with the express purpose of determining if rising temperature noted throughout most of the 20th Century by weather station temperature sensors and satellite measurements could be due to man-made causes -- so-called anthropogenic global warming (AGW). This graph raised significant problems for the IPCC. As Professor McKitrick put it:

It is easy to see why this graph was a problem for those pushing the global warming alarm. If the world could warm so much on such a short time scale as a result of natural causes, surely the 20th century climate change could simply be a natural effect as well. And the present climate change could hardly be considered unusually hazardous if even larger climate changes happened in the recent past, and we are simply fluctuating in the middle of what nature regularly dishes out.

Then suddenly, just two years later, the IPCC produced a major game changer. Its Third Assessment Report published in 1997 contained the results of a theoretical analysis by Michael Mann, an Associate Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and two other researchers purporting to show climate temperature reconstruction using statistical modeling of a large number of observations and tree ring proxies. This was the birth of the "Hockey Stick" graph [2] labeled MBH98 in a paper, Global-Scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing Over the Past Six Centuries, published by Nature magazine in 1998 [3]. It was followed up in another paper published by the same authors in 1999 [4] extending the analysis back from 1400 AD to 1000 AD (see below) through the Medieval Warm Period -- which now magically disappeared.

Another researcher, Shaopeng Huang at the University of Michigan, and two others published a 1997 analysis of 6000 borehole records yielding temperature profile data from each continent, dating back 20,000 years [5]. Analysis of that data clearly showed signs of the Medieval Warm Period followed by the Little Ice Age and confirmed that temperatures in the 12th Century were significantly warmer than today.

Huang submitted his borehole data to the IPCC, and it received a brief mention in Chapter 2 of the Third Assessment Report. However, the Huang et al. graph showing the temperature implications from that data -- which clearly would challenge the hockey stick graph -- was omitted. Instead, the IPCC published a graph of borehole temperature data taken from another study based on a smaller sample, but it only showed a post-1500 AD segment, which, conveniently, trended upwards from the minimums of the Little Ice Age.

As Professor McKitrick summarizes:

As soon as the IPCC Report came out, the hockey stick version of climate history became canonical. Suddenly it was the "consensus" view, and for the next few years it seemed that anyone publicly questioning the result was in for a ferocious reception.

Why was this graph so vital for the IPCC and its work? It provided an easily visualized iconic chart making it just a simple exercise to assert global warming correlates with the increase in manmade carbon-based greenhouse gases measured during the 20th Century, to postulate that correlation means causation, and to extrapolate that further increases in greenhouse gas emissions would spell dire consequences for the planet.

Evaluating the IPCC Model

As political hysteria over "man-made" or anthropogenic global warming (AGW) increased, other scientists began checking the mathematical analysis and measurements behind the hockey stick chart because it did not correlate with other known historical temperature data. In 2003 Professor McKitrick teamed with a Canadian engineer, Steve McIntyre, in attempting to replicate the chart and finally debunked it as statistical nonsense. They revealed how the chart was derived from "collation errors, unjustified truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, incorrect principal component calculations, geographical mislocations and other serious defects" -- substantially affecting the temperature index [6].

Worse yet, McIntyre and McKitrick prepared a database using a system of quality control which avoided the arbitrary filling in or truncating of data they had observed in the IPCC analysis and computed principal components using standard algorithms. Without endorsing the MBH98 methodology or choice of source data, they simply applied that same methodology to their improved database and recomputed a temperature index history using the same source data. Their new work yielded a Northern Hemisphere temperature index in which the late 20th century showed nothing exceptional compared to preceding centuries, displaying neither unusually high mean values nor variability.

Their key graph published in 2005 (see below) showed two lines: the 1998 MBH98 profile and their corrected version. The corrected temperature graph they produced now revealed substantially higher global temperatures in the 15th Century not shown by MBH98. Following the 2005 publication of their work, McIntyre and McKitrick (like all skeptics of AGW) were savagely criticized.

However, far more trouble for AGW supporters came in 2006 when a panel of experts, chaired by Dr. Edward Wegman, Chair of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, concluded that the statistical methodology underpinning the hockey stick version was, indeed, profoundly flawed. The Wegman panel submitted a report to the U.S. House of Representatives (which should have been available to all House members including Rep. Waxman) which cited results of an earlier National Research Council panel endorsing the work and results of McIntyre and McKitrick. Wegman's work also found the McIntyre and McKitrick analysis independently verifiable, their observations of the IPCC flaws correct and "valid," and their arguments "compelling."

Perhaps even more devastating, Wegman criticized Dr. Mann and his IPCC colleagues for their systematic unwillingness to freely share research materials, data and results outside of a small group of like-minded analysts. "[W]e judge," he wrote, "that there was too much reliance on peer review which was not necessarily independent." He further observed:

Overall, our committee believes that Mann's assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.... Based on the literature we have reviewed, there is no overarching consensus on MBH98/99.

One would expect that credible criticism of the iconic hockey stick version of global temperature trends by a well-recognized expert on mathematical modeling would generate useful debate. However, the IPCC refused to back down, leading scientific journals (such as Nature and Science) refused to publish critical articles, and political leaders around the world spurred public opinion supporting the IPCC report.

The hockey stick graph presented visually arresting scientific "support" for the political contention that fossil-fuel emissions were causing higher temperatures. As such, it paved the way for adoption of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol by numerous countries and provided the basis for a worldwide campaign to alarm and motivate government officials to limit production of such fossil fuels. It thus achieved its purpose of providing a "scientific" foundation for legislation seeking to limit or reverse global warming.

Manmade Greenhouse Gases

It is one thing to say the planet overall may be warming and quite another to assert such warming is manmade as opposed to the result of natural forces. AGW advocates say manmade warming comes from production of so-called "greenhouse" gases. These are considered those constituents of the atmosphere capable of absorbing infrared (heat) radiation.

Numerous gases make up the Earth's atmosphere. Of these, nitrogen represents about 78% by volume, oxygen comprises just under 21%, and other gases (including "greenhouse gases") make up slightly over 1% by volume remaining. Of the principal greenhouse gases, water vapor is by far the most prevalent. Second place belongs to carbon dioxide (CO2) at 0.04% with methane and nitrous oxide finishing a very distant third and fourth.

What complicates analysis of any manmade greenhouse effect is the relatively overwhelming prevalence of water vapor -- a gas ignored by the IPCC. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates water vapor makes up 95% of identified greenhouse gases and, of that amount, less than 0.001% can be attributed to manmade causes. Thus, the IPCC and AGW proponents have focused on CO2 as the principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas.

There is little doubt that the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy, which has been going on since the start of the Industrial Revolution, releases large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Also, CO2 levels have been increas­ing steadily and are now estimated from ice core analysis to be some 35 percent higher than 200 years ago.

The problem with such seemingly serious assertions regarding CO2 is that, in spite of its increasing presence, it still remains just a trace gas in the atmosphere. As of November 2007, the CO2 concentration in Earth's atmosphere was estimated at 0.0382% by volume, or 382 parts per million by volume.

Another problem is that natural production of CO2 from such sources as combustion of organic matter, natural decay of vegetation, volcanic emissions, and the natural respiration of all aerobic organisms dwarfs that produced by fossil fuel burning. The U.S. Department of Energy has released estimates that nearly 97% of total CO2 emissions would occur even if humans were not present on Earth and that, because of the overwhelming presence of water vapor, manmade CO2 causes less than 0.12% of Earth's greenhouse effect. To attribute so much power to affect the earth's climate to a man-made gas so minor in amount would appear to defy common sense.

Put another way, if accumulation of greenhouse gases has any impact on global warming, Department of Energy data indicates nearly 99.9% would have to be attributed to natural causes. Nevertheless, AGW proponents blame approximately 1/1000 of all produced planetary CO2 -- this trace gas which, in its totality, comprises less than 4/10,000 of the atmosphere -- as the principal cause of climate change because it provides the only way to link global warming to human activity.

Numerous scientists and climatologists point to the terrible flaw that the IPCC analysis totally ignores the impact upon climate of solar activity, water vapor, and effects of cloud formation on global air pressure, temperature and winds. As Dr. Tim Ball, a former climate scientist at the University of Winnipeg, put it: "The analogy that I use is that my car is not running that well, so I'm going to ignore the engine (which is the sun) and I'm going to ignore the transmission (which is the water vapor) and I'm going to look at one nut on the right rear wheel (which is the human-produced CO2) ... the science is that bad!" [7]

What Are Effects from Global Warming?

In spite of evidence that increases in CO2 levels follow elevated global temperatures rather than drive global warming [8, 9], the entire subject of manmade global warming has been overlaid by predictions of imminent catastrophe if we do not immediately institute steps to reduce CO2 production. Predictions of planet destruction and species loss due to unbearably hot air temperatures, major storms, warming oceans, melting glaciers, disappearing arctic ice, and rising ocean levels swamping islands and coastal cities seek to foster a sense of impending doom.

Remember, such predictions were first made nearly 15 years ago. No one disputes that manmade CO2 emissions have continued to increase. However, the catastrophic results have failed to materialize.

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that low altitude atmosphere temperature data obtained from satellite measurements show global temperatures have not risen since 1998 and have cooled slightly in the last five years in spite of rising CO2 levels each year.

• Another NOAA and NASA project, monitoring 3,000 buoys deployed around the world's oceans, confirms static or slightly cooling ocean temperatures in the same time period.

• The National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that arctic ice coverage measured in 2009 is little changed from 2008 and greater than 2007.

• In a 2004 paper published in Global and Planetary Change [10], Stockholm University professor Nils-Axel Mörner, of Sweden reports that rising sea levels predicted for the Maldives island chain due to global warming are not showing expected results. He concludes that the sea level about the Maldives has actually fallen approximately 11 inches in the past 50 years. He notes: "In our study of the coastal dynamics and the geomorphology of the shores we were unable to detect any traces of a recent sea level rise. On the contrary, we found quite clear morphological indications of a recent fall in sea level."

• At the 2007 UN High Level Meeting on Climate Change, the Deputy Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Tavau Teii, said that major greenhouse polluters should pay Tuvalu for the impacts of climate change due to its loss of land to ocean encroachment. However, recent geological studies show Tuvalo is "sinking" due to excavation of coral for hotel and infrastructure construction [11]. The mining has severely compromised the atolls, creating the impression that the islands are sinking, when in fact they're merely being dug up.

Scientific "Consensus"

It seems reasonable to ask, therefore, how can a seriously flawed -- if not actually fraudulent --mathematical model linking production of the relatively minuscule amount of an atmospheric trace gas be used to blame mankind for major planetary climate change? The answer lies in the intense public relations campaign launched by environmentalists worldwide following publication of the 1997 IPCC report. The entire debate has been framed by presenting only one side to the maximum extent possible while demeaning any skeptics. The worldwide distribution in 2006 of the Al Gore movie An Inconvenient Truth added to the simplistic polarization and politicization of debate.

One cannot ignore how the IPCC report initiated within the United Nations played into an anti-Capitalism agenda. The report became justification to launch a major campaign throughout much of the late 1990s beginning with the 1997 Kyoto protocol and incorporating numerous U.N. special sessions and other international conferences during the following decade. All focused on accusing the world's richest countries of being long-standing polluters who must bear the burden for cutting greenhouse gases. A special 2007 UN conference, dominated by third world countries, demanded that rich industrial nations curtail their economic growth by reducing CO2 emissions and use their wealth to finance cuts in emissions in other countries. As British Prime Minister Gordon Brown put it, the effort involved "making the issue of climate change one of justice as much as economic development." [12]

Given these multinational political forces seeking worldwide redistribution of wealth, it also becomes clear why throughout much of the 1990s only that scientific work promoting the concept of manmade global warming received serious financial support from government sources. This led to the perception of a scientific "consensus." Numerous scientists and mathematicians complained that serious debate on climate change was being suppressed by the lack of funding for skeptical research and the systematic criticism of such skeptics as just "tools" of energy companies or paid servants of Corporate America

.

However, as the work of McIntyre, McKitrick, Wegman, Carter and others has spread, scientific "consensus" in recent years has begun collapsing. A detailed review of 539 technical papers about climate change published between 2004 and 2007 found no evidence -- none --supporting specific "catastrophic" climate change due to man. In March 2009, a petition signed by over 31,000 scientists stated in part: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

Conclusion

From the above analysis of recent work evaluating "man-made global warming," it appears possible to respond to the two major premises which Representative Waxman uses to justify immediate legislative action:

1. There appears to be no serious evidence that some form of unprecedented global warming is underway. The mathematical modeling effort used to support AGW claims has been shown to be flawed, if not fraudulent. Any scientific "consensus" of a major problem appears to be coming from a self-reinforcing group within or financially dependent upon the IPCC.

2. No serious scientific link between any perceived global warming and the miniscule amount of manmade CO2 in the atmosphere (beyond the flawed or fraudulent IPCC mathematical model) has been made. Also, in 15 years since the first predictions of catastrophic events were announced, none of those events can be demonstrated to be underway today.

On July 22, 2009, the Science and Public Policy Institute released a study showing that the U.S. government alone has spent more than $79 billion of taxpayers' money since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, public relations campaigns, foreign aid, and tax breaks. The study documents that audits of the science involved has been left to unpaid volunteers. They cite how a dedicated but largely uncoordinated grassroots movement of scientists has sprung up around the globe to test the integrity of "global warming" theory competing with a lavishly-funded, highly-organized climate monopoly and how major errors have been exposed again and again.

What is becoming clearer is that the concept of "manmade global warming" may be one of the greatest hoaxes in world history. How soon this will become generally known will depend on how forcefully the political effort seeking both national and international control of industry and wealth redistribution can keep the hoax hidden by intimidation and forcefully amplified rhetoric while systematically jeopardizing the economies of America and other developed nations.

REFERENCES:

[1] "20th Century Climate Not So Hot," Press Release, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, March 31, 2003

[2] Technical Summary of the Working Group 1 Report, IPCC Third Assessment Reports, 2007, page 29

[3] Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S. and Hughes, M.K. (1998). "Global-Scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing Over the Past Six Centuries", Nature, 392, 779-787.

[4] Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S. and Hughes, M.K.. (1999) "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations", Geophysical Research Letters, 26, 759-762.

[5] Huang, Shaopeng, Henry N. Pollack and Po Yu Shen (1997). "Late Quaternary Temperature Changes Seen in Worldwide Continental Heat Flow Measurements." Geophysical Research Letters 24: 1947-1950

[6] McIntyre, Steven and McKitrick, Ross (2003). "Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series." Environment and Energy 14(6) pp. 751-771

[7] Young, Gregory, "It's the Climate Warming Models, Stupid!", AmericanThinker.com, March 31, 2009

[8] Hopper, William, Professor of Physics Princeton University, Statement to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, February 25, 2009

[9] Zeebe, Richard E., et. al., (2009) "Carbon Dioxide Forcing Alone Insufficient to Explain Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum Warming," Nature Geoscience 2, pp. 576 - 580

[10] Mörner, Nils-Axel, "New Perspectives for the Future of the Maldives", Global and Planetary Change Vol. 40, January 2004, Pages 177-182

[11] Sussman, Brian, "Sinking Islands or Stinking Islands?", AmericanThinker.com, April 22, 2009

[12] Zabarenko, Deborah, "U.N. Climate Change Meeting Aims at Rich Countries," Reuters, July 31, 2007

Mr. McLaughlin retired as vice president of a company producing special-purpose military communications equipment. He lives in California and may be reached at j-c-mcl @nccn.net.

From: American Thinker, September 27, 2009

Trends: The New STERNO

Make sure you pay a visit to Hospital Man,

In indefinite traction
as a guest of the UK's NHS

"Desperate situations call for desperate measures… like the prisoner in a British jail who recently managed to get himself drunk on the alcohol-based hand gel that was brought into the prison to counteract the threat of swine flu...Amazingly, this isn’t the first time that someone has decided to mix a Swine Flu Sling in the absence of any other tipple. Last March The Royal Bournemouth Hospital announced that it was one of many hospitals that had taken the precaution of removing alcohol-based hand-cleaning gel from reception areas in a bid to stop visitors drinking it. Such is the desperate level of life here in the UK that people are obviously stopping off at the hospital on the way home from work for a ‘quick gel’ with their mates. I knew we were in a recession, but I never realized it was that bad."

A sham 'compromise' health care bill waiting in the wings

By Dennis B.Cooke MD & Carolyn Cooke

In the background, behind all of the noise around the Baucus bill and the endless appearances by Obama, is another healthcare bill that has been given little attention. A flawed bill this worrisome legislation appears to be waiting in the wings. The Healthy Americans Act (HHA), or Wyden-Bennett, was re-introduced to Congress in February, 2009. Written by Oregon Senator Ron Wyden (D) and Utah Senator Bob Bennett (R), it has a bi-partisan group of co-sponsors in the Senate.

Will Wyden-Bennett be trotted out as another "grand compromise" piece of legislation? A coalition of Senators from both sides of the aisle may very well intend to ride in on their white horses with a massive public relations campaign in hopes of convincing the American people they have listened to our outrage. They are already saying they have crafted a bipartisan solution to America's healthcare problems that offers universal coverage while preserving the free market. Sen. Wyden says his plan will be the one, speaking at a meeting with directors of the Pima County Medical Society in Oregon in May, 2009

The truth is Wyden-Bennett is a backdoor takeover by the Congress of the entire insurance marketplace. The result would lead to a complete nationalization of our healthcare system. It may well be the bill Obama and members of the United States Congress have intended to legislate all along.

Wyden-Bennett is the most overreaching and dangerous threat to our liberties of any of the bills in existence.

The Healthy Americans Act is the plan former Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy endorsed from the very beginning of the healthcare debate. Candidate Senator Hillary Clinton, said she would sign this bill if she was elected president. Interesting endorsements for a supposedly free-market plan!

Under Wyden-Bennett, the insurance market is 100% regulated by the federal government. This plan mandates Congressional approval of all insurance plans including the premiums the insurance companies may charge. The government will approve or disapprove insurance claims.

The insurance companies as we know them today will exist in name only to promote the façade of a free market. They will only exist as purveyors of nationalized healthcare. With only government improved plans and premiums, the incentive for innovation and competition in the insurance market will be crippled.

Make no mistake, the private plan you enjoy now will be gone. The standard benefits package will be the BlueCross/BlueShield Plan in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). This plan is designed for older, financially secure federal employees. The average 2009 family premium is $13,440 per year.

Under federal mandate all Americans will be forced to buy the FEHBP as their minimum allowable coverage. The ability of the insurance company to offer any lesser coverage will be gone -- the needs and wants of the individual will no longer be taken into consideration. The young healthy individual, with a lower salary and little need for extensive benefits, will be forced to purchase the same policy, at the same premium, as an older life-long smoker or diabetic. In effect he will be subsidizing their care. Many young Obama supporters are going to be very unhappy with this plan.

Michael F. Cannon, Director of the Health Policy Studies at the CATO Institute, states that 30-50% of Americans will be forced to pay more than they need or want for healthcare in order to subsidize others. Often those others may be people that have chosen unhealthy lifestyles.

The penalty for failure to comply will be the average monthly premium plus 15% for each uncovered month.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will expand further into our personal lives. The premium will be taken out of paychecks, thus removing any transparency from the system and diminishing the consumer's ability to make responsible choices. The IRS will be in charge of all collections, disbursements and the garnishing of wages for penalties. Checks for claims, payments for hospitals, clinics and healthcare providers will be written by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and administered through the sham insurance carriers. The IRS may collect the money for fines out of your bank account.

Widen-Bennett involves the taxation of your government controlled health insurance plans up to 25% and other taxes, including many deceptively hidden ones. Another attack on innovation will come from an exorbitant tax on device and drug companies doing research and development.

Proponents say this bill will deliver a ‘revenue neutral' plan. However, you may rest assured it will only remain so by raising the cost of the premiums you will be forced to pay over the years or by reducing the number of services covered in policies.

HAA is almost identical to the Massachusetts Healthcare plan Kennedy touted. The cost of family healthcare premiums in Massachusetts are the highest in the nation, projected to rise to $26,370 per year by 2020, according to the Commonwealth Foundation. According to the Mr. Cannon at the Cato Institute, Healthcare costs in Massachusetts have risen 60% over what they would have if no reform had been passed. He reports the average wait time in Boston to see a specialist is 50 days-29 days longer than the average in most American cities, even though there are more doctors per capita.

Imagine the extraordinary costs under this possible scenario

American taxpayers will be subsidizing the premiums of those up to 400% above the poverty line. Already Americans are upset with the costs of the healthcare plans in the forefront of the debate. If amnesty is passed, as Congress intends, Americans will be forced to subsidize the 12-20 million predominantly low-skilled illegal aliens that are already in this country and the many millions more of their relatives that will enter this country through chain migration.

Who Stands to Benefit from Wyden-Bennett

The beneficiaries of this plan will be the elected officials in Washington, D.C. who will be lining their already deep pockets with more lobbying money. No thought will be given to the effectiveness of the treatments covered in the plans but instead lobbyists will line up to promote their devices and services in the same way Medicare is handled now. Efficacy of care will be thrown out the window with our freedom to choose our coverage.

Leftist Senator Ron Wyden introduced the bill in the Senate Finance Committee along with Utah Republican Senator Bob Bennett. Wyden, an attorney, hails from a state that has a government run public option. Recently, a 64 year old cancer survivor died because her Oregon government plan did not cover a potentially life-saving drug, prescribed by her doctor who thought it had a good chance of helping her survive. Her government option was a $50.00 assisted suicide pill. Wyden wants Oregon care for all Americans and this plan will deliver it when cost dictates force cuts in benefits.

Senator Bennett has always wanted to nationalize healthcare. He was enamored with HillaryCare in the 1990's until he was forced to go along with the other members of the party in opposition because of the strong resistance of the American people. So anxious is he to institute a government takeover, he is willing to lie to achieve this goal by pretending the free market principles are being applied to the insurance marketplace.

Four other RINOs, Republicans-In-Name-Only, have joined Democrats to co-sponsor the Healthy Americans Act (S 391). The RINOs on the Senate Finance committee who have so far formally given support by signing on as co-sponsors of the bill are Lindsay Graham (SC), Michael Crapo (ID), Lamar Alexander (TN), and Judd Gregg (NH).

The lack of integrity demonstrated by the Republicans and Democrats who are co-sponsoring and supporting this government takeover of healthcare is matched by the lack of respect they demonstrate for the American people who have spoken loudly against more government intervention in the system. They either still believe "we the people" are stupid or complacent.

If their intention is to lie about Wyden-Bennett and sell it as a necessary ‘compromise' that satisfies the concerns of the American people, they have another think coming.

Rahm Emanuel Claims that Health Reform Will Pass Both Houses of Congress Before the Thanksgiving Recess on Charlie Rose, September 24, 2009

From American Thinker, September 26, 2009

The Constitutional Revolution 2009

The Revolution (won't be televised)

Chris Burgard
Big Hollywood

What began on the border in 2005 has spread to DC and every state in the union. The Revolution isn’t coming, it is here. Call it the Constitution Revolution. The genie is out of the bottle and there will be no putting her back in.

I spent all day yesterday up and down Pennsylvania Avenue with people from all over the Union. One guy I met had 45 autographs on his t-shirt from people from 45 states. He only needed 5 more to make it a day.

The mainstream media has reported the rally as anti-Obama or anti-government, both are partially true, but I believe that pro-Constitution would be much more accurate. Pro-Constitution and polite. This was more than a peaceful demonstration. I never heard so many excuse mes and thankyous in my life, and not a drop of litter to be found.

There was some anger yesterday, there was a lot of frustration, but mostly there was a multitude of Americans determined to have their voices heard. I am talking about people of all colors. I am talking about people with long hair, short hair, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, conservatives, cops, teachers,college students, grandmas, grandpas, great grandmas, moms, dads and kids.

The frustration demonstrated yesterday has been building for longer than nine months. What do the people want? They want the Federal Government to listen to the will of the people. They want the Federal Government to stick to the Constitution. They want the Federal Government to Keep the Czars in Russia.

Recommended Article, HERE.