Adventure is worthwhile - Aesop

Monday, November 30, 2009

Nick Schulz posts this plot from JP Morgan, which shows the percentage of cabinet officials having private sector experience:

To be honest, I’m a little skeptical—I’d like to see the data and analysis, not just take it on the word of “a friend” of Schulz’s.  But just looking at the top-level cabinet officials, I see mostly career politicals (Donovan, Emanuel, Holder, Jackson, Kirk, Sebelius, Solis) and people with a modicum of experience in education or law (Biden, Lahood, Clinton, Duncan, Locke, Napolitano, Orzag, Romer, Vilsack, Obama himself).  Susan Rice did some consulting.  Chu and Rommer were full-on professors.  Gates sat on some corporate boards but was mostly in intelligence.  Shinseki is a soldier.

So this analysis sounds right.  Obama has staffed his cabinet with politicians, lawyers, “educators” (not teachers) and academics.  When Robert Gates is your strongest link to the private sector, you’ve got a problem.  I don’t think any of Obama’s cabinet members have ever paid a payroll tax.  Or watched a business go under.  Or dealt with OSHA.  Certainly none have been in the trenches of medicine, manufacturing or banking—the three areas in which they are most involved—except on the regulatory side.

We are being governed by people who’ve spent their entire lives running for Class President—an army of self-important Tracy Flicks.

Obama’s attempts to rewrite millions of mortgages are not meeting much success.  Part of this is because the program is disorganized and chaotic.  Part of this is because so many adjusted mortgages go into default anyway.  Part of this is that, if you’re unemployed, it doesn’t matter how far down the bank adjust your payments.  And part of this is because the banks are wising up about extending credit to bad risks.

What to do?  Well, apparently, failure is not an option:

The Obama administration on Monday plans to announce a campaign to pressure mortgage companies to reduce payments for many more troubled homeowners, as evidence mounts that a $75 billion taxpayer-financed effort aimed at stemming foreclosures is foundering.

“The banks are not doing a good enough job,” Michael S. Barr, Treasury’s assistant secretary for financial institutions, said in an interview Friday. “Some of the firms ought to be embarrassed, and they will be.”

Even as lenders have in recent months accelerated the pace at which they are reducing mortgage payments for borrowers, a vast majority of loans modified through the program remain in a trial stage lasting up to five months, and only a tiny fraction have been made permanent.

Mr. Barr said the government would try to use shame as a corrective, publicly naming those institutions that move too slowly to permanently lower mortgage payments. The Treasury Department also will wait until reductions are permanent before paying cash incentives that it promised to mortgage companies that lower loan payments.

“They’re not getting a penny from the federal government until they move forward,” Mr. Barr said.

They are even, God help them, thinking of taking Philadelphia’s mortgage program national.  When our national leaders turn their lonely eyes to the City of Brotherly Mugging, you know that they’re desperate.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

I’m not sure what to make of the recent developments in Iran.  First, there was this:

The United Nations nuclear watchdog demanded Friday that Iran immediately freeze operations at a once secret uranium enrichment plant, a sharp rebuke that bore added weight because it was endorsed by Russia and China.

The governing body of the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, meeting in Vienna, also expressed “serious concern” about potential military aspects of Iran’s nuclear program.

Administration officials held up the statement as a victory for President Obama’s diplomatic efforts to coax both Russia and China to increase the pressure on Iran. They said that they had begun working on a sanctions package, which would be brought before the United Nations Security Council if Iran did not meet the year-end deadline imposed by Mr. Obama to make progress on the issue.

This seems to have provoked this:

Iran warned Sunday that it would reduce its cooperation with United Nation’s nuclear agency and in a gesture of defiance it ordered the construction of 10 new uranium enrichment plants.

Iran’s warning and its announcement for building new plants appeared to be its first reaction to the demand by the United Nations nuclear watchdog demand on Friday to immediately suspend enrichment activities at a newly disclosed site called Fordow, near the city of Qum. Iran had told the agency that it planned to complete the half-built plant, which is tunneled into the side of mountain, by 2011

This is partly empty posturing.  Iran simply does not have the capacity to build ten new enrichments plants.  They might just as easily boasted that they were all going to nail Britney Spears.  Actually, that boast would be more credible.

Still, the regime is clearly rattled and rattled regimes can be dangerous.  I don’t know if this is progress or not.  It’s something.

Cato has a pair of articles looking at Obama’s once and future spending.  In response to Karl “deficits don’t matter” Rove’s hypocritical screed on deficits, Daniel Mitchell makes a point that has been grating on my nerves as well:

I’m a big fan of criticizing Obama’s profligacy, but it is inaccurate and/or dishonest to blame him for Bush’s mistakes. At the risk of repeating my earlier post, the 2009 fiscal year began on October 1, 2008, and the vast majority of the spending for that year was the result of Bush Administration policies. Yes, Obama did add to the waste with the so-called stimulus, the omnibus appropriation, the CHIP bill, and the cash-for-clunkers nonsense, but as the chart illustrates, these boondoggles only amounted to just a tiny percentage of the FY2009 total – about $140 billion out of a $3.5 trillion budget.

I would add that most of the stimulus is slated for next year, not this year.

I had family in town for the holidays and so Fox News was on the tube a lot.  I heard a lot of this Born Again Fiscal Conservatism, some of it from Turd Blossom himself.  I find it impossible to take seriously.  Of the record deficit this year, a tremendous amount can be laid at Bush’s door in form of TARP and the two wars.  That’s not even blaming him for the revenue drop caused by the recession—or that his “tax cut” made federal revenues more vulnerable to such downturns.  And of the massive projected deficits in the future, much of it is the structural deficits of Medicare and Social Security which Bush inherited but only made worse.

To hear clarion calls for fiscal discipline from the guys who stood around silently while all this happened is laughable.  I have no doubt that if the Republicans took Congress back, they would go back to spending like maniacs and Rove/Hannity/Beck et al. would go back to being quiet about it.  No attack on our current fiscal situation can be made unless we acknowledge how we got here.  And without any actual, you know, ideas about how to cut spending—such as raising the retirement age, slowing the COLA adjustments or cutting defense spending—it is all pure empty partisan screaming (laced, unfortunately, with the usual faux populism and anti-intellectualism).

We can’t afford this bullshit right now.  We’re on the brink of the situation getting even worse—when Obama’s college kid spending habits do kick in.  FY 2010 will see the peak in stimulus spending—one that is likely to become a permanent year-to-year fixture.  Obama has yet to reveal any plan whatsoever for reigning in Medicare and Social Security—or at least one that does not involve massive (and deceptively packaged) spending.  Hell, he passed a cynical increase in SS payments to buy senior votes despite the recommendations of the trustees.  And then there’s this.  Beyond the $2 trillion (and growing) direct cost of PelosiRediCare, Michael Cannon looks at the indirect costs:

When the bills force somebody to pay $10,000 to the government, the Congressional Budget Office treats that as a tax.  When the government then hands that $10,000 to private insurers, the CBO counts that as government spending.  But when the bills achieve the exact same outcome by forcing somebody to pay $10,000 directly to a private insurance company, it appears nowhere in the official CBO cost estimates — neither as federal revenues nor federal spending.  That’s a sharp departure from how the CBO treated similar mandates in the Clinton health plan.  And it hides maybe 60 percent of the legislation’s total costs.

...

When we correct for both gimmicks, counting both on- and off-budget costs over the first 10 years of implementation, the total cost of ObamaCare reaches — I’m so sorry about this — $6.25 trillion.  That’s not a precise estimate.  It’s just far closer to the truth than President Obama and congressional Democrats want the debate to be.

All this should make me flock back to the conservatives, should make me putty in Karl Rove’s flabby hands.  But when I look that way, all I see is the same fuckers who made a hash of the last eight years trying to sneak in through the back door.  They were willing collaborators in Bush’s fiscal pillage and their current eigenstate—brushing off the past, not proposing any serious spending cuts—demonstrates that they have no intention of fixing the situation.  Hell, I am not at all convinced that if the GOP were returned to power right now, they wouldn’t just steal PelosiReidCare, sneak it across the border, file off the serial numbers and sell it back to us as BohnerCare.  That’s how bad they’ve been and how empty their rhetoric is.

(A GOP Congress with a Democratic President might be fiscally conservative just for partisan’s sake.  I’m willing to take that chance in 2010.  But I’m not willing to see them take both Congress and the White House.  Not yet.)

Watching Fox News was a revelation to me that I’ve gone through the looking glass.  These people are saying what I want to hear and expecting me to follow along.  But I refuse to be fooled again.  I’ll know someone is serious when they have the guts to propose cutting the big programs.  Until then, I will continue to attack in both directions.

Friday, November 27, 2009

The Pacific Research Institute has a damning graph of PelsoiReidCare.

I’ve mentioned this before, but this illustration is simply perfect at showing the fiscal sleight-of-hand the Democrats are pulling.  This is fairly standard political deception.  Notice that the big budget problems begin in the “out years”, when Obama will either have been re-elected or it will be Someone Else’s Problem.  This also assumes that Congress sticks to their budget and doesn’t blow up the costs with new mandates and benefits.  That’s about as realistic as my projections of how many kids I plan to have with Keeley Hazell.

On the lighter side, WSJ has 20 medical innovations to be thankful for.  My favorite:

Around the world, 27% fewer children died before their fifth birthday in 2007 than in 1990, due to greater use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, better rehydration for diarrhea, and better access to clean water, sanitation and vaccines.

Almost all of this is because of the innovation and genius created by our evil, broken, non-functional healthcare system.  Fortunately, the Democrats are planning to fix it.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

For all you who some how take time from your family to join “this” family here, i leave a open post.
use it well.

Oh, How about posting your favorite Thanks giving Quotes.

Mark Twain
Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for—annually, not oftener—if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man’s side, consequently on the Lord’s side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments.

and

Arnold Schwarzenegger
I love Thanksgiving turkey… it’s the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The last couple of years, I’ve given out my awards for “Turkey of the Year” (2008, 2007).  The idea of the award is not to slam political/cultural figures who are the most harmful or the most dangerous, which is why I won’t be tagging Obama or his Congress.  No, the idea is to acknowledge those whom are the most deserving of mockery, those whose non-stop silliness makes the world go around and give punch lines to talk show hosts.

Be sure to pony up your nominees.  But my 2009 Turkeys of the Year are:

1) Mike Steele.  I was very bullish on Steele when he was tapped to head the Republic Party.  However, from embarrassing attempts to appeal to young people, to a web page that quickly became a running gag to a Republican purity test that consists entirely of things Republicans oppose—no solutions to any problems—he’s been ineffective at best.  He’s even losing the party to the Palin wing, having let them blow NY-23.  Barack Obama represents the biggest challenge conservatism has had in forty years.  Steele is not up to the challenge.

2) Glen Beck: Thank you so much, Mr. Beck, for becoming a national joke.  Thank you for constantly responding to Obamaism in the most hysterical and Godwin’s Law-afflicted prose.  To be fair, you should share this reward with Fox News, who, by editing footage of past protests into recent ones, is slowly trying to make true every hysterical liberal accusation ever made.

3) The Clinton State Department:  From the “reset” button to a protocol office that can’t seem to decide whether Obama should shake the Japanese Emperor’s hand or suck his dick, they’ve been an ongoing laugh track.

4) Sarah Palin: From her bizarre resignation to her dicey relationship with the truth, she is coming to represent everything that’s wrong the GOP.  A “genuine American” who is as phony as a three-dollar bill.  And please, Sarah, could you stop using the baby as a prop?

5) Andrew Sullivan: I still read his blog, which is always interesting and relevant.  But I need to set my browser to filter out all Sarah Palin posts.  His bizarre vixation upon her and her uterus would make Ahab say, “Whoa, dude.  You watched Oprah? Let it go.”

Dishonorable Mention: Elliot Spitzer, Carrie Prejean, Michael Moore, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Obama celebrity videos, the Mainstream Media, Joe Biden, Henry Louis Gates and James Crowley, the twerps caught up in ClimateGate.

However, it shouldn’t all be cynicism here.  In past years, I’ve also given out Golden Drumsticks to those who have me proud to be an American.  This year, I could really give it to the American people, who are paying closer attention to our government than the media whose job it is and who are weathering the economic storm with more grace, dignity and perseverance than a whole army of politicians.  But I’ll focus my kudos to:

1) The American Fighting Man.  They don’t care who is in Washington or what the politics are.  They continue to fight with courage, restraint and honor.  When history looks back, the US Armed Forces will stand taller than the Roman Legions.  The Fort Hood massacre was a stark reminder of how they represent the best of the nation.

2) Kimberly Munley and Mark Todd: These are the two civilian cops who stopped Nidal Hassan. And the amazing thing is that we have thousands of cops out there who would have faced down a killer with equal skill and courage.

3) George W. Bush: Yes, I’m as surprised as you are.  But he has been quiet in his post-presidency, unwilling to offer all but the most oblique criticism of his successor.  And his quiet and unpublicized visit in the wake of the Fort Hood tragedy was everything an ex-President should be.  I have the feeling that this will be a trend and that as bad a President as he was, he will turn out to be just as good an ex-President.

Have a safe and happy holiday everyone.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

You remember the census worker who was supposedly murder by extremist Right Wingers?  Um, no.

Authorities are saying a Kentucky census worker found hanging from a tree with “fed” scrawled on his chest committed suicide and staged his death to look like a homicide.

A news release from Kentucky State Police said Tuesday that Bill Sparkman died at the same location where his body was found Sept. 12 near a cemetery in a heavily wooded area of southeastern Kentucky.

A man who found the body in the Daniel Boone National Forest said the 51-year-old was bound with duct tape, gagged and had an identification badge taped to his neck.

Investigators say Sparkman acted alone in manipulating the scene to conceal the suicide.

The news release says Sparkman had recently taken out two life insurance policies that would not pay out for suicide.

This is a sad story.  But we will see if the grim details are reported as eagerly as was the massive speculation that he was murdered by Right Wing Whackos.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Looks like the terrorists that killed 3000 of us on 9/11/2009 are just as excited as the radical America hating left is about their opportunity to spout their views of the evils of our great nation.

NEW YORK (AP) - The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday. Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but “would explain what happened and why they did it.”
The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month that Ali and four other men accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. will face a civilian federal trial just blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Sure makes Holder’s choice of this venue very obvious now. It is a bone thrown out those that like them think it is America’s fault for being or doing whatever they don’t like. All the usual Bush and America hating turds can rejoice in the crap these idiots will spout and secretly, or not in many cases, nod in agreement. Of course, not even the Obama people are so stupid to believe that these people should be able to go free. That’s why Holder has promised they will be found guilty. BTW, if that claim by Holder is not a clear indication of a rigged trial and a huge problem with our justice system, I don’t know what is.

Critics of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try the men in a New York City civilian courthouse have warned that the trial would provide the defendants with a propaganda platform.

And also the losers that agree with them. That’s how this should read. But it won’t. We all know it, but we will not say it out loud. Need to give these shlobs something to feel good about considering they are front and center for the destruction their kind of thinking is wreaking on our country these days.

The attorney general said he does not believe holding the trial in New York - at a federal courthouse that has seen a number of high-profile terrorism trials in recent decades - will increase the risk of terror attacks there.

Doesn’t matter that Osama said he targeted new York for this very kind of stuff. Watch these idiots blame Bush for this too.

The more people hear about what the politicians are going to stick us with, the less they like it. As the American people learn what the faith our politicians envision for us, while keeping themselves immune to the misery they intend for us I should add, the more they balk at the plan.

Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan. Half the survey was conducted before the Senate voted late Saturday to begin debate on its version of the legislation. Support for the plan was slightly lower in the half of the survey conducted after the Senate vote. Prior to this, support for the plan had never fallen below 41%. Last week, support for the plan was at 47%. Two weeks ago, the effort was supported by 45% of voters. Intensity remains stronger among those who oppose the push to change the nation’s health care system: 21% Strongly Favor the plan while 43% are Strongly Opposed.

It’s no mystery why this thing is becoming despised by so many. It will cost us a lot more than it does now or would otherwise if nothing was done going forward. We will get far less, have to wait much longer, and likely be denied much more coverage than even the worst case scenarios today do. People are realizing that the democrats want control of the money and our decision making, not to fix healthcare. That’s why we have things like this:

Overall, 46% favor the creation of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option that people could choose instead of a private health insurance plan. However, if the plan encouraged companies to drop private health insurance coverage for their workers, support for the public option falls to 29%, and opposition rises to 58%.

And you better believe they are lying when they tell us they will not encourage companies to drop us. That is, unless you think using the power of the federal government to bludgeon employers into dropping people instead of just leaving it up to them doesn’t qualify as encouragement.

As Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “The most important fundamental is that 68% of American voters have health insurance coverage they rate good or excellent. … Most of these voters approach the health care reform debate fearing that they have more to lose than to gain.”

It’s a given that those of us that are happy with what we got are going to not be happy after this bill. We are going to pay more to get less. And we are going to have to go through a bureaucrat to get it. I bet that even the ones that are unhappy with what they have will pine for these good old days if the collectivists get their way.

On immigration, 83% say that proof of citizenship should be required before anyone can get health care assistance from a government program. Most Democrats while claiming the plan will not cover illegal immigrants are opposed to including a proof-of-citizenship stipulation.

We already know the democrats will have none of that. In fact if they somehow are thwarted on this get ready to see some 12 million people nationalized so they can vote for democrats.

Other polling shows that 47% trust the private sector more than government to keep health care costs down and the quality of care up. Two-thirds (66%) say an increase in free market competition will do more than government regulation to reduce health care costs.

That first item there baffles me. Do these people have any real experience with government? Have they simply resigned themselves to poor service because they are jealous of private insurers making a profit? What gives? With the exception of the military I think everything else government does is not only a colosal and monumental waste of our money, but to be shunned just like one would shun a AIDS infected rapist. At least the majority is smart enough to see tha what we are getting is not going to cut costs at all.

Only 31% believe Congress has a good understanding of the proposed health care reform.

I think people got this wrong. My bet is that these crooks know exactly what they are doing to us, and they don’t care. It is about increasing their power, influence and personal wealth. No wonder they are in such a hurry to pass this abommination. As people find out how bad it is, they are going to lose support from even the most ardent supporters.

Lamar Alexander, being guilty by geography, is already being blasted as a racist for this (can’t seem to embed)

Dumping of 15 million low-income Americans into a medical ghetto called Medicaid that none of us or any of our families would ever want to be a part of for our health care…

..Moving 15 million Americans into this medical ghetto…

…Moving 15 million low-income Americans into a program called Medicaid which is a medical ghetto is not health care reform.

He shouldn’t be.  OK, it’s tone deaf.  But I’m not prepared to accept the glib pronouncements that his is some kind of secret GOP racist code.

And really, anyone who has dealt with Medicaid or worked in a hospital that is mostly financed by Medicaid knows that this is a very accurate description.  Historically, a ghetto described a region in which undesirable elements (i.e, Jews) were walled off so that they would not contaminate the rest of the city.  In the US, it refers to areas of blight and poverty.  I can’t imagine any more accurate description of the Medicaid system—or PelosiReidCare—than that.

Hospitals that are heavily dependent on Medicaid tend to be poor and substandard.  King-Harbor hospital in LA, for example, was heavily dependent on Medi-Cal and Medicaid (with lots of uninsured).  This was the hospital that drew national attention when a woman died on the floor of the ER and was later shut down for being poorly run even by Medicaid standards.  Anyone who works in the industry know what is meant by “public” when it comes to hospitals and clinics.  It often means dirty walls, long waits and providers who can’t wait to get the hell out.  Medicaid reimbursement rates are pitifully low, Medicaid patients typically need more care and the result is, inevitably, catastrophe.

Moreover, under the current reform paradigm, we are looking at a system where the wealthy and powerful will be safely cloistered in boutique hospitals with tons of care (and lots of pain meds at the end of life).  The rest of us will wallow in a system that make Britain’s NHS look good.  If you want to see the future of healthcare, do some volunteer work in an inner city public hospital.

Would I have use the word “ghetto”? No.  I try to avoid words with any racial overtones.  It’s not because of any sensitivity on my part.  It’s because I want to debate policy, not verbiage, and any wording with racial context immediately diverts the discussion.  Moreover, Republicans—especially southern Republicans—are given little to no margin for error on the race issue.  If Chuck Schumer had said something like this, no one would care.  But someone like Alexander is not going to be given any leeway.

That being said, Alexander is absolutely right on the effect of healthcare reform (although he was conspicuously silent when Bush policies expanded Medicaid). The current reform will dump millions of Americans into a system that is already creaking from overload, unfunded mandates and pathetic reimbursement rates, a system that was created primarily as a dumping ground for people the government didn’t give a shit about.

I would think that this was a joke, except that I know some people who are quite serious about this “side hug” business.

Christian Side Hug from The Fathers House on Vimeo.

NSFS - Not Safe For Sanity. Also, “Jesus never hugged?” As I recall, Jesus was betrayed by a kiss from a man, said kiss being a common greeting at the time.

I’ve decided the Christian Side Hug is not for me.  No disrespect or anything.  But I think I’ll stick with my Agnostic Jew Dry Hump.

Update: As long as I’m embedding funny videos:

Dead on.  From now on, I’ll be referring to the policies of Team Obama as “doing sex to us”.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

It looks like Reid bought enough votes to push the government healthcare takeover in the Senate forward. The collectivists are ecstatic about their success and have already slated their horrible plan’s faux discussion for November 30th. Their is a hurry here to get this done so that the collectivists can have time to smooth over this disaster before the 2010 elections. Maybe another big stimulus payout to buy the votes to keep them in power. But the faith of this awful monster thankfully is still not a given. Especially with this kind of economic news and the disastrous way democrats continue to deal with this crisis of their own making.

Anyway, Reid had to promise some massive deficit enhancing cash outlays and favors to buy the votes of many of these red state democrats shown in the list below whom are going to pay for this vote back in their home states:

Alaska - Mark Begich.
Arkansas - Blanche Lincoln.
Arkansas - Mark Pryor.
Louisiana - Mary Landrieu.
Missouri - Claire McCaskill.
Montana - Max Baucus.
Montana - Jon Tester.
Nebraska - Ben Nelson.
North Dakota - Kent Conrad.
North Dakota - Byron Dorgan.
South Dakota - Tim Johnson.
West Virginia - Robert Byrd.
West Virginia - Jay Rockefeller.

Let us hope all these bastards selling us to these criminals lose their next election. Better yet, let us hope tat these bastards don’t stick us with this disastrous and destructive takeover of healthcare by government. Because this is the future of healthcare when government owns us through it.

Looks like even the MSM can no longer ignore ClimateGate anymore, as this WaPo article shows. What’s ClimateGate about? I’ll get there in a second, but let me set this up for you. Basically we all already know that the watermelons pushing “Climate Change” and demanding we establish a socialist world government to spread the wealth and solve the problem - I know, this baffles the sane mind that their solution to what they have labeled to be a world ending climate issue, is collectivism writ large - before we all die and the mackerels become the dominant species in Waterworld. We are told that there is no disputing the science because the consensus is on their side. But this article in the WaPo is showing another thing.

Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming. While few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world’s climate—nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal—public debate persists. And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain’s Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies. In one e-mail, the center’s director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University’s Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science.

What is missing form this WaPo piece is the “why” that this is going on. The issue comes back to Steve McIntyre’s critique of work by Keith Biffra, which as this American Thinker piece shows, rigged his tree ring research - the same one the IPCC uses at it’s bible on AGW - showing the famous global warming “Hockey stick” effect. basically McIntyre was lambasted and accused of foul play, lying, and much worse, before some saint hacked the e-mail of these clowns and showed us how deep this scam and the defense of these scammers runs. Of course, the cultists are not budging, and the WaPo dutifully mouths their crap for them:

Kevin Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and wrote some of the pirated e-mails, said it is the implications rather than the content of climate research that make some people uncomfortable. “It is incontrovertible” that the world is warming as a result of human actions, Trenberth said. “The question to me is what to do.”

This cult is based on lies, damned lies, and the IPCC’s lies. This is about faith, not science. Then again, considering what they keep telling us is the solution to their made up cataclysmic problem, one could easily have concluded this whole thing was a scam from the start. This is going to be fun to watch.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Wonkette has a breathless post about how the evil Fox News has pictures of Obama that have “monster” and “doomsday” in the title.

Um, guys?  That is apparently some standard size description.  Because today’s picture of Sarah Palin is entitled “112009_rules_monster_397x224”.  Several other picture are also at 397x244 and have monster in the title.

Keep trying.