Just a short post today, but not much needs to be said since Mitt Romney has proven himself to be nothing more than Obama-lite on Global Warming:

The early GOP presidential front-runner has broken with his party’s conservative ranks to declare global warming a real threat to the planet that merits some sort of action to curb heat-trapping emissions.

Sorry, but Romney does not have the IQ, science and math background to understand this issue – and he is wrong. I will not go into all the ways the global warming farce has been proven wrong over the last two decades. Suffice to say the sky is not falling as predicted. Worse yet, the IPCC predictions became so outrageous as to be laughable. We even learned data disproving the wild claims of runaway warming never before seen in a thousand years was covered up and we are no warmer now than in the 1930’s, Medieval Times or Roman Warm Period.

So for Romney to claim, without any evidence he actually grasps the technical nuances of the matter, Global Warming is real and we need to waste money on it is the final straw. No way, no how – and no need.

The guy is for government run health care and believes in the fantasy of Global Warming. So how exactly is this a better choice than Obama?

The last thing we need to do is hand to Romney a GOP run Congress in 2012 so he can do his version of Global Disaster Obama! Actually, I would rather have a GOP Congress with heavy majorities using the veto override on an impotent Obama than give Romney even as much as an inch to repeat Obama’s mistakes. Obama can do nothing with a GOP Congress, Romney could. So don’t think Obama could not win another term if what we need was a powerless figure head playing golf all the time.

Follow this link for many more great pictures from ABC News of the 2010 Christmas Blizzard

The mythology of runaway global warming is being given the full Al Gore effect this Christmas – what with the historic blizzard that just walloped the center of liberal ‘thinking’ on America’s East Coast. As President Obama’s administration make one more attempt to uselessly raise the price of energy and line left-wing pockets by going after the gas we breathe by pretending it is a poison to life (as opposed to literally being ‘the oxygen’ to all plants on Earth), Mother Nature (a.k.a. Gaia) is out in force reminding puny humans to be humble in the face of forces we cannot yet grasp, let alone predict.

My friend Don Surber took a nice jab at the lame excuses coming out of the left wing regarding the last 15+ years of flat or cooling climate:

Blizzards across the northern hemisphere and a white Christmas in Australia do not disprove global warming. The lies from the researchers, as disclosed in Climategate, already did that.

Actually, the researchers themselves already did the disproving. One thing to remember is that all this science has been put to the test for the last twenty years. For two decades we have scientific predictions on what was going to happen to Earth’s climate due to CO2 levels rising slightly (from a historic perspective, Earth is at a severe low point in the all important CO2 levels). The classical scientific theory is generally made up of the following steps:
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Update: UK MET office has determined the alarmists cries of rising oceans was were ‘wrong’:

Alarming predictions that global warming could cause sea levels to rise 6ft in the next century are wrong, it has emerged.

The forecast made by the influential 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which would have seen cities around the world submerged by water, now looks ‘unlikely’.

…

The new Government funded study, says the worst case scenario is now a one metre (3.3 ft) rise.

In 2007 the IPCC reported preliminary evidence that the Atlantic conveyor belt that brings warm water north and keeps Britain relatively mild for its latitude during winters was breaking down.

But more recent observations show the currents are stable.

As with all alarmist predictions, the word ‘unlikely’ seems to be a good way to describe all of the end-of-the-world cries we have had to put up with over the last 20 years. – end update

It seems Gaia has decided the global warming alarmists are too full of hot air. Mother nature has been putting on quite a show in the heart of global warming paranoia – specifically the nation that hosts the CRU. The UEA CRU are those folks who cooked Gaia’s books to create the impression of warming from raw data that shows no warming within the precision of the available data. And Gaia is now sending a message:

At least 60 people have died across Europe during the current cold snap, as snow plagued transport in Britain on Friday and serious flooding prompted mass evacuations in the Balkans.

…

Temperatures plunged to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus four Fahrenheit) in Braemar, Scotland, while Britain struggled to get back to its feet after days of transport chaos.

London’s Gatwick airport reopened on Friday after a two-day shutdown due to snow, but others including London Heathrow and Glasgow warned of more cancellations and delays.

Many trains were cancelled due to snow and travel by road was slow going, and around 2,000 schools remained closed.

This from the nation whose media cockily predicted the end of snow in the UK. Seems Gaia was not pleased with such gall and has been putting on a show to remind humanity of their puny abilities.

The truth is of course less science fiction (or bad science) than simply normal history. Humans have a very tough time, in general, recalling with precision events and conditions ten years back, let alone 50 or 60. We forget that it takes the Earth a long time to recover from ice ages – 100’s of years. We are just as likely to simply be warming back up to Roman and Medieval levels than seeing CO2 cause runaway warming.

Sanity is beginning to return with the colder weather:

Never mind that Britain, just as it was last winter and the winter before, was deep in the grip of a cold snap, which has seen some temperatures plummet to minus 20C, and that here 2010 has been the coolest year since 1996.

…

But buried amid the details of those two Met Office statements 12 months apart lies a remarkable climbdown that has huge implications – not just for the Met Office, but for debate over climate change as a whole.

Read carefully with other official data, they conceal a truth that for some, to paraphrase former US VicePresident Al Gore, is really inconvenient: for the past 15 years, global warming has stopped.

…

Earlier this year, a paper by Michael Mann – for years a leading light in the IPCC, and the author of the infamous ‘hockey stick graph’ showing flat temperatures for 2,000 years until the recent dizzying increase – made an extraordinary admission: that, as his critics had always claimed, there had indeed been a ‘ medieval warm period’ around 1000 AD, when the world may well have been hotter than it is now.

Other research is beginning to show that cyclical changes in water vapour – a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – may account for much of the 20th Century warming.

Even Phil Jones, the CRU director at the centre of last year’s ‘Climategate’ leaked email scandal, was forced to admit in a little noticed BBC online interview that there has been ‘no statistically significant warming’ since 1995.

So, no warming in at least 15 years. I am not surprised since I did an analysis of CRU raw data last November and discovered that the current ‘climate’ is not all that different from the 1930’s and early 1940’s. It seems that we really have just been recovering from the cold spell that hit in the 1940’s.

And what of the future? Some strong evidence shows 3 decades of pretty damn cold temperatures is what we may actually see from Gaia:

It was thought that carbon dioxide emissions rather than the sun was the bigger effect on climate change. Now a major re-think is taking place.

The upshot is that Gavin is not alone in predicting we face another 30 frozen years, each getting progressively colder than the last.

Of course, some die hard fanatics are still holding out that AFTER the other forces on our climate are through doing their thing, man-made global warming should appear. Not likely. The fanatics overplayed their imprecise data. They claimed 1998 and 2005 where the warmest on record, when in fact they knew statistically all the data could say is today’s climate is about the same as the 1930’s warm spell:

The admission is found in a tidbit in one email, where GISS admits their standard deviation is 0.47 °C (which begs the question about any warming trend measured at 0.8 °C). What this means is the years, 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938 and 1939 (the top 10 ‘warmest’ years in America) are all statistically the same ‘warmth’. They all fall within the GISS claimed standard deviation.

Not only has Phil Jones and Michael Mann admitted their wild conclusions do not stand up to their own data, but one of their allies investigating their work admitted the data is so imprecise we have no idea whether today is warmer or colder than previous periods.

All this leads to quite a show down next year, when the GOP Congress gets to take on the EPA – an out of control agency that has lost its collective mind to global warming madness. As the IPCC’s credibility crumbles and carbon exchanges disappear like so much snake oil seeping into the sand, the GOP should be able to expose the unprofessional and unfounded actions of Obama’s political appointees and their rush to control the planet’s energy options. Even more fascinating, is the method they have at their disposal to take on the EPA – a little used congressional tool left over from the Clinton-Gringrich days:

Senate Republicans may use a different tool in their minority efforts to contain the EPA’s efforts to impose climate-change regulation by fiat, a rarely-used law called the Congressional Review Act. Created in 1996, the law essentially allows Congress to veto regulatory changes created by executive branch agencies, and may become a sledgehammer in battling the Obama administration’s regulatory innovations:

As they say – pass the popcorn, this is going to be good.

DC is so damn incoherent. I mean babbling madman incoherent.

Supposedly, now that the left has our nation running deficits of $1.3 trillion a year (what a normal administration could not produce in a single term, Obama does annually), we are all now supposedly focused like a laser beam on deficits. But liberal ideology is all about pretending and misinforming. Anything to get a socialist, government run solution to any and all problems. When desperate, as they are now in the lame duck Congress, the facade falls away and you glimpse the liberal’s inner madness.

So, in this time of emergency related to sky rocketing deficits, the liberals have come up with a double whammy compromise – some last gasp of insanity to prove to themselves they can still make ‘progress’:

The second-ranking House Democrat said that the House will vote on extending the bulk of tax cuts Thursday, and has considered tying upper-rate extensions to a vote on unemployment insurance.

Hoyer is the consummate DC incompetent. Extend our current tax RATES (‘cuts’ that have been in place almost a decade are no longer ‘cuts’ – unless you are emotionally crippled with Bush Derangement Syndrome), while paying millions to go into their 3rd year of not working – living off those who are working (big deficit spending). So we keep the tax rates where they are (none of those beloved taxes the left salivates over) but fund a third year of unemployment benefits?.

As long as workers make an easier living sitting on the side line there will be no economic growth. But do the liberals care about economics? Hell no, they just want to keep as many people stuck in the government safety net as they can, because holding them there sends money to Democrat pockets.

This is not the only left wing insanity on parade right now. While the left bemoans the religious fervor of the social conservatives (especially during this Christ-mas season) their answer to the teachings of the Bible are a form of draconian insanity to appease their Green God Gaia:

In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.

This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles for many people in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel hungry cars.

Prof Anderson admitted it “would not be easy” to persuade people to reduce their consumption of goods

He said politicians should consider a rationing system similar to the one introduced during the last “time of crisis” in the 1930s and 40s.

This could mean a limit on electricity so people are forced to turn the heating down, turn off the lights and replace old electrical goods like huge fridges with more efficient models. Food that has traveled from abroad may be limited and goods that require a lot of energy to manufacture.

“The Second World War and the concept of rationing is something we need to seriously consider if we are to address the scale of the problem we face,” he said.

The poor professor (a physicist, not a biologist or ecologist or the still-to-be-professionalized climatologist) seems to have missed the memos of the last decade. For one, Phil Jone of IPCC alarmist fame has had to admit, under oath, that there has been no measurable warming since 1995. 15 years of massive increases of CO2 in the atmosphere and no warming to be found. In the last ten years there has actually been a distinct cooling. And this nut job wants to stop all economic growth?

I am sure the Obama administration wants to hire him straight off! They too want to stymie all economic growth until the “have not’s” catch up with the “have done’s”.

The other memo the nutty professor has missed is the one where an investigator of CRU admitted – under oath again – there is no way to accurately compare today’s climate to that of 1,000 years ago.

Most of the warming since 1880 happened before 1950 – before the CO2 explosion from the industrialized developed world. That is because all the warming and rising oceans is a result of the end of the Little Ice Age – which has taken a few centuries to complete its thawing. We are more likely experiencing the bitter end of that thaw than on the brink of rampant warming. Sea level rises have slowed since the 1940’s. Temperatures have not changed much since the 1930’s and 1940’s. The alarmists cleverly pulled the alarm bells just as the warming was about to end. This is why climate science has yet to reach the professional quality levels of other established scientific and engineering professions.

So, because a few delusional and misinformed liberals think the end of the world is nigh they want all of us to sacrifice to their insane visions. Nice, eh?

Instead of the people sacrificing to the liberal gods of Government and Green Gaia, the people want runaway government trimmed back to its minimum:

To ease surging budget deficits, Americans prefer cutting federal services to raising taxes by nearly 2-1 in a new poll. Yet there is little consensus on specific, meaningful steps – and a wariness about touching two gargantuan programs, Social Security and Medicare.

There is no consensus to simple minded liberal media questions (except they are always simple minded). But if the Congress decided to assess what government programs and services the nation could survive without, that individuals and states be responsible for dealing with (like feeding their kids a breakfast instead of buying a fancy TV or car), then I am sure the nation would back (by majority, not consensus) a lot of cut backs. We want government down to its barest necessity.

Let’s have the debate. Are we going to waste anymore money at the feet of the liberal Gods of Government and Green Gaia? Or are we going to let the people keep their money and watch in wonder as they blaze the path for our future. Of course I am biased. Government lives off the innovation, sweat and energy of those creative and bold enough to discover new products and services. Government is a drag on innovation – not the source. So I know where I want my money.

Updates Below!

While Gallup’s generic ballot poll bounced ten points in favor of the Dems over the labor day weekend (note the connection between a long weekend and one strange poll result) a slew of other polls came out that showed an enormous lead for the GOP in this fall’s elections. As I predicted on June 28th, when Senator Byrd passed away, his WV senate seat is now in play since the Mountaineers of WV despise this administration and government in general. The race has moved from ‘solid Dem’ to ‘toss up‘ in a few short weeks. Also as I predicted, FL has joined OH and PA (and many other senate races) in the ‘leans GOP‘ at RCP, putting the Dems at 48 seats and the GOP at 46 – with six toss ups. The Senate map is turning redder (and darker red) every week now. In the House the GOP leads by 14 seats: 207-193. I see that lead growing in the coming weeks as well.

There are a lot of Dems who are pretending this is all not happening – like VP Biden who pathetically claimed the Dems would be in the majority on November 3rd (technically true, but really just a classic elitist half truth). A new study has come out pretty much confirming what has been obvious to many for months – people are lining up to get a chance to send the Political Industrial Complex a clear, unambiguous message. The study shows the number of people voting GOP vs Dem in the run-up primaries is heavily tilted in favor of the GOP, at a level not seen in 80 years:

For the first time since 1930, more Republican voters showed up to vote in statewide primaries this year than Democrats — another sign of the huge challenges facing President Obama’s party in this year’s elections.

The new figures come from a just-released report by voter turnout expert Curtis Gans of American University.

Gans looked at 35 primaries held before Sept. 1 and found that 4 million more Republicans voted than Democrats — statistical proof of the “enthusiasm gap” that pollsters and pundits have been talking about.

That, combined with the fact that the percentage of voters who identify themselves as Democrats has been on a steady decline for decades, spells big trouble for the president’s party, Gans said: “The Democrats are at an enormous disadvantage.”

This reaction by America to busy-body bureaucrats really should not be a surprise to anyone who really understands the good heart and soul of this nation, and respects its people (instead of looking down their nose at them). Liberals really think they are God’s gift to humanity, and that the common folks (bitter and clinging of course) require constant guidance. They even think Americans desperately want to be constantly guided from DC, and will be wildly grateful when liberals finally control their lives. It is a serious form of insanity on the part of the left.

This is what I wrote in March 2009 when Obama and Pelosi were in full liberal madness:

President Obama is a running disaster. He and his liberal friends are going to keep pushing the envelope of socialist control until things break (which they probably already are doing). They have no clue what they are into, or how naive they are to the challenges. And they have no idea how big a backlash can erupt from this nation when its people are pushed too far by too many freedoms being taken away.

DC is heading towards a harsh lesson: they are the servants of the people, not the other way around.

As the wave begins its final rise this fall, possibly reaching historic peaks in living memory, and maybe for all time, it is important to understand that this nation is led only because the people agree to be led. We are not led because there is inherent good in government over all other human endeavors (just the opposite). Nor are we led because the federal government is all powerful. The people are the power of this nation – the private sector especially.

It is imperative that the GOP not screw up this opportunity being handed to them this fall, and they CAREFULLY start dismantling the federal bureaucracy. We need to neutralize the busy-bodies and reign in government.

Keep one thought in mind as this opportunity arrives: give people time to adjust. We cannot be tossing people into upheaval. We can dismantle the bloated behemoth in DC carefully and with minimal pain and disruption. Keep that basic tenant in mind and the nation will allow the GOP to seriously reduce the carbon footprint of the federal government (most easily by moving the decision power back to the states and the people). The era of big government can be over – but it will take time, compassion and ingenuity.

Update: A must read article from Mort Zuckerman on how public servants are now masters of the public.

Update: Kimberly Strassel at WSJ does a good job of noting how all the liberal successes passed under Obama-Reid-Pelosi are NOT being touted by Dems in this year’s elections:

And now that the ambitious Obama experiment in liberal governance is going kaboom, his members—even those who voted with him—are running for cover.

A total of 279 House and Senate Democrats voted for ObamaCare. Not one is running an ad touting that vote. How can they, given headlines about Medicare cuts and premium hikes? You will, however, find a growing catalogue of ads such as this one from Maryland Rep.

Liberalism is toxic. Who knew?

If you happen to be open minded and not intimidated by Sarah Palin then this latest attempt at humor by the left will leave you shaking your head – in sad amusement at the pathetic nature of the left. I mean really folks, just because you disagree with this mother of 5 does not mean you have to run around like a school yard bully taunting the woman with knuckle dragging jokes. Not to mention people who either support her, or support her right to voice her views and participate in our political process. It is respecting the right of people to have a go at our political process that demands a modicum of maturity – a step too far for some libs.

Here’s the ‘joke’ in question:

PLANS to build a state-of-the-art library next to Republican catastrophe Sarah Palin are causing outrage across mainstream America.

Campaigners have described the project as insensitive and a deliberate act of provocation by people with brains.

Wow. What towering intellect thought that one up. This poor bloke just made Germans look funnier than the Brits! This is why we need to throw out the current class of JD political leaders. They think and act like the spoiled brats they are. Now its time they went and got a real job doing something productive – and harmless to the rest of us.

I know I will get slammed for the comparison, but some times the acts fit the crime. The Obama administration’s PR campaign is mirroring the PR campaign instituted by the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. I am saying mirroring, not identical. We have yet to hit the point where political opponents are more than roughed up by labor union goons. There are no concentration camps out there. But some core methods are eerily similar.

For example, Team Obama and the liberals in DC keep trying to find a way to silence critics on the internet and control free speech. While the compliant news media is all tingly in the legs over Obama’s irrational policies, the internet and a few real journalists are threatened with boycotts and censorship when they lodge objections. How is this different from the 1930’s equivalent of book burning?

Goebbels rose to power in 1933 along with Hitler and the Nazi Party and he was appointed Propaganda Minister. One of his first acts was the burning of books rejected by the Nazis. He exerted totalitarian control over the media, arts and information in Germany.

The internet is the modern day, electronic version of books containing historic knowledge and wisdom. It is also at times nothing more than a comic book.

The lack of ability for Team Obama to assume overt control as Goebbels did does not mean the desire and effort are not being applied! What about the Fox News ban to the White House Press corps in 2009? What about the proposal by Team Obama for controls on the Internet? I loved this string of pretzel logic:

“A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government,” he wrote. “Democratic efforts to reduce the resulting problems ought not be rejected in freedom’s name.”

You don’t get much more Goebbels like than that! Or can you?

Goebbels was famous for instituting Hitler’s “Big Lie“ – something so audaciously wrong people hesitated to react:

The Big Lie (German: Große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, for a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”

All this was inspired by the principle–which is quite true within itself–that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. – Adolf Hitler

Remember, not all insight and wisdom comes from evil, but it can be used by evil. This Big Lie theory is probably a very valid observation, given all the fringe conspiracy theories that run from the truthers to the birthers. In fact, Nazis made huge leaps in science, math and engineering – all valid. They just twisted this knowledge to evil purposes. They twisted this knowledge to THEIR purposes.

If you feel your cause is righteous (like you need to save the planet or something dramatic) you can rationalize using any tactic, especially if you do not know how that bright idea of yours was used and abused in the past.

So the Big Lie is a method to trick the general public into following the wrong path – based on establishing false premises. Was the Stimulus Bill a Big Lie? It did nothing for the unemployed at large, but it did shovel tons of money to state and federal jobs, which coincidentally filled the coffers of public employee unions. All purely accidental I am sure.

Was the health care bill a Big Lie? It could have been since most people were covered with top rate insurance, but will now trade that in for crappy government plans on the false promises this will reduce cost while covering everyone. And of course all this will come to pass without death panels limiting care to those who need to get on with shuffling off their mortal coils.

What is becoming evident with Team Obama is they employ the Big Lie all the time. And they will emphasize it with inaction in the face of critical issues, as a way to inflate the lie to sufficient size. Take immigration reform and the Arizona crisis with rising violent crime. It has been recently exposed by  US Senator (no less) that the President Obama has allowed the situation in Arizona to deteriorate so he could apply the Big Lie:

On June 18, 2010, Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl told the audience at a North Tempe Tea Party town hall meeting that during a private, one-on-one meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office, the President told him, regarding securing the southern border with Mexico, “The problem is, . . . if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” [Audible gasps were heard throughout the audience.] Sen. Kyl continued, “In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’”

Well, this explains why Team Obama wants to sue Arizona for instituting a law identical to federal laws now on the books. If Arizona FIXES their problem then Obama’s Big Lie disappears. And remember how Goebbels had a compliant press that distributed the Big Lie? We have that in this situation here as well. Tom Maguire has highlighted some serious falsehoods promulgated by Team Obama and the New York Times regarding the rise of crime near the border. No wonder a free internet is so bad for government run journalism.

This is the Obama Modus Operandi and is being applied to the Gulf Oil Spill as well. Was it incompetence that delayed the government action – or was it something else? Here I verge on the brink of conspiracy theory myself, so  I will not draw conclusions but draw attention to some disturbing facts.

First, Team Obama literally forged a scientific consensus on their crazy decision to close down all off shore oil drilling for 6 months. A decision that will stop Gulf oil production for years and expose us to more risks as wells are shutdown and the best rigs and people move to other regions of the world. The government outright lied, and was called on it by the scientists whose names had been used on the forgery:

Ken Arnold, an engineer and consultant, said the changes went beyond just the drilling moratorium. The Interior draft he looked at included timelines for each safety recommendation. The “bulk” of those recommendations, he explained, were all ones that could be done within 30 days. And most of the longer-term provisions would result in only “marginal increases in safety.”

Yet when the final report came out, the timelines he saw had been removed, no doubt because they argued against the necessity of a six-month moratorium. Mr. Arnold adds that the Administration’s decision to allow industry to continue drilling “gas injection wells”—which, he says, are no more risky than production wells—only shows the moratorium makes “no sense.”

Who could be so crass as to take a crisis like this and exploit it thusly? Well, why do we have a crisis like this? The oil could have been burned off at the site of the explosion – it did not need to travel to all the coastal regions. But that option (along with chemical dispersement) was derailed by our government. The oil could have been sucked up by a flotilla  of international ships, avoiding the damage to wetlands, wildlife and summer vacation plans. Except those ships were held at bay by the government. The oil could have been contained with booms, blocked by sand bars, etc. All efforts blocked by the government. The crisis became epic due to a series of strange acts of inaction. How ironic.

Was it orchestrated this way? Well what does this story tell you?

The panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is short on technical expertise but long on talking publicly about “America’s addiction to oil.” One member has blogged about it regularly.

…

Environmental activist Frances Beinecke on May 27 blogged: “We can blame BP for the disaster and we should. We can blame lack of adequate government oversight for the disaster and we should. But in the end, we also must place the blame where it originated: America’s addiction to oil.” And on June 3, May 27, May 22, May 18, May 4, she called for bans on drilling offshore and the Arctic.

“Even as questions persist, there is one thing I know for certain: the Gulf oil spill isn’t just an accident. It’s the result of a failed energy policy,” Beinecke wrote on May 20.

Two other commissioners also have gone public to urge bans on drilling.

A panel instituted to INVESTIGATE the spill is stacked with liberal policy spouters and one or two people technically capable of grasping the basic physical forces and engineering being applied to the problem? It would seem from this bit of evidence the plan all along was to bolster the Big Lie (i.e., we need to halt use of oil, no matter what the cost).

And don’t think this approach is limited to the White House. Speaker Pelosi recently exposed her part in the health care big lie as she decided to let Medicare patients and doctors suffer to get her liberal agenda through.

These people are not leaders, they are liars. They create crisis so they can lie about the cures they propose. Cures to end the free market system of America – not to do anything about their Big Lies.

This time, the comparison looks to be valid – Goebbels would be proud.

So tomorrow (or today depending on when you read this) there will be primary elections in many states and one key special election in PA-12 to replace the late John Murtha. My predictions are below for PA-12, the PA Dem Senate Primary and the AR Dem Senate primary. Underlying all these predictions is the fact that most pollsters have no way to fully anticipate the intensity of the voters tomorrow given the unique anti-DC fever we are seeing this year, there is no historic voting data to extrapolate from with confidence (statistically speaking). That means most pollsters are underestimating the shellacking some of these democrats are going to take tomorrow.

It is well known that the intensity is up on the pro GOP side, that those groups who turn out for off year primary and special elections (seniors, etc) have drifted away from the Dems in heated opposition to their failed liberal policies, and that independents are also rising in opposition to Obama’s policies. For examnple, Obama’s support in key battleground states (and therefore districts) is horrible right now:

In Florida, the president’s net approval rating is -1.7; in Colorado, it’s -6.5; North Carolina, -2.7; Ohio, -7.8; Nevada, -5.0; and Pennsylvania, it’s -3.0.

All of this trends to some more historic and ground shaking losses for Dems, in line with what the nation saw in the 2009 VA & NJ governor races, and the MA special election earlier this year to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s seat.

While the polls show a tight race in PA-12, I predict GOP candidate Burns is going to win big, by at least 5% and maybe even 10%. His democrat opponents is the epitome of the entrenched DC liberal elitists. So while the district is heavily democrat in party registration and the GOP has not won there since the 1930’s, this year PA-12 will be the democrat loss felt across the nation. It will show that the rising tide of opposition is broad and deep. So deep 100 Democrat House seats and maybe up to 10 Democrat senate seats could be in play. PA-12 should prove that the Scott Brown win in MA is not a fluke, but a harbinger of political destruction for the Democrats.

I also see Senator Specter losing tomorrow. He is not really a Democrat but another one of those entrenched DC relics who should have retired long ago. Sestak will win, paving the way for the Dems losing the PA Senate seat in November.

I actually think Blanche Lincoln will survive for her drubbing in the November general elections. AR is not very liberal, which is why her far left opponent has no prayer of winning. I think AR will hedge its bets and keep Lincoln on the ballot for November, just in case and to so the voters can send her party a message about going too far left.

So there you have it. Burns will pull a Scott Brown in PA-12, Specter’s will lose and Lincoln will survive. And given my track record of late all this means nothing!

Addendum: It looks like a Rand Paul win in KY, but I bet his win will be smaller than expected. Sort of a ‘ho hum’ in my opinion.

Over at Bishop Hill there is a debate raging on the ‘trick’ used by Michael Mann to hide the “decline” or “divergence”. The debate is whether this trick was a fudge or a fraud. It seems some on the skeptic side of the debate are too willing to give Mann a pass:

The “trick” was of course, to truncate the divergent data, to replace it with the instrumental records for the same period and then to smooth the spliced series so that the join was no longer visible. The sentence is the Spiegel article seems to suggest that this “swap, splice and smooth” process could reasonably be described as a “mere” fudge.

This one sentence raises many objections. Is fudge actually distinct from fraud? Is fudging a trifling thing that can reasonably be tossed aside by attaching it to the word “mere”? And where does the “swap, splice and smooth” technique really fit in among these terms.

I commented at Bishop Hill, but I wanted to raise this point because I think it hits at the core of the AGW theory. A ‘fudge’ would have been to replace one set of similar data with another less accurate or less confident set of data. That is NOT what happened in this case. And here is why.

The entire claim that recent warming is unprecedented, and therefore caused by recent human industrial activity, relies on a simple premise: temperature proxies, such as tree rings, directly correlate to global (and historic) temperature. If this is not the case, the entire claim that global warming is due to human produced CO2 is destroyed. Not just called into question, but destroyed. For AGW claims to hold up, tree ring data has to follow global temperatures.

What Mann did was erase the modern tree ring data set covering decades (from 1960 onward) because tnis data proved the tree ring proxies were not directly related to temperature, or that the current temperature records are driven by something other than global warming which would show up in tree rings. Either way, this removal of contradictory data was no fudge, it was a fraudulent effort to hide the reality of the data.

Since Mann had to erase decades of data, it is also clear this was not a one-off year or decade, but a long term trend that has to be explained, not covered up.

In addition, the fact is this divergence between the highly precise global temperature record and a comprehensive and far reaching set of tree ring data means this divergence is not isolated to a geographic region. Outside a few magical trees here and there, most of the tree rings show this divergence.

So what does this divergence really mean? Well these trees are selected because they grow on the boundary of sustaining trees, therefore they are sensitive to temperature more than other factors (so the theory goes). The fact that so many trees diverged can only lead to one of two mutually devastating conclusions:

(1) The tree rings never were a strong proxy for global temperature. Therefore the historic record showing a significant warming in previous periods (Medieval Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, etc) cannot be overturned with this questionable tree ring data. QED: today’s recent warm period (now we are back into a cooling phase) cannot be proven to be historically high.

(2) The tree rings are a strong proxy for global temperature. Therefore something is seriously wrong with our modern temperature readings, such as the fact all the temperature sites are now overwhelmed with one for of Urban Heat Island effect or another. Many skeptics have uncovered numerous examples of localized UHI of one form or another. QED: the temperature record indicating recent warming is too biased and contaminated to conclude the current warming is any more significant than the previous warm periods (including the warming of the 1930-40’s)

Either way, the tree ring data that was deleted and replaced with temperature readings was not an act of ‘fudging’. It was an act of covering up devastating hard data which would destroy the foundation of AGW claims.

Major Update At The End!

The manufacturing of a non-crisis takes careful consideration and detailed work -and a lot of ignorance or gullibility on the part of the person being targeted with the  faux crisis. The most notorious example of this is of course global warming, where the combination of human ingenuity and cow/pig farts is supposedly converting the world’s climate into an oven, inside which all life will die.

I used to give some miniscule benefit of doubt to the Chicken Littles from the Church of IPCC and Saint Al Gore for being well meaning, but incredibly sloppy mathematically and scientifically. But as more details come out about how well crafted the propaganda is, and how too many scientists were too lazy or greedy to challenge the propaganda, I have lost that miniscule remnant of sympathy and respect. And some recent articles help explain why.

The first article is by Richard Lindzen and was posted at WUWT. It sets the stage with this wonderfully glib, pithy and accurate observation about the core issue surrounding the exaggerated cries from warmists:

In a world where we experience temperature changes of tens of degrees in a single day, we treat changes of a few tenths of a degree in some statistical residue, known as the global mean temperature anomaly (GATA), as portents of disaster.

Earth has had ice ages and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in a 100,000-year cycle for the last 700,000 years, and there have been previous interglacials that appear to have been warmer than the present despite lower carbon-dioxide levels.

I could not have said it better. We are worrying about about some statistical noise. In fact, these statistical ‘signals’ are so weak and noisy that we do not know, with any certainty whatsoever, if the current climate is unique at all.

Moreover, the so-called scientists behind this knew this to be true, and covered it up. This has become clear in the CRU emails and documents made public last fall, as emphasized by the esteemed Steve McIntyre.

I am getting more and more concern about our statement that the Early Holocene was cool in the tropics – this paper shows that it was, actually, warm – ice core evidences+glaciers were smaller than now in the tropical Andes. The glaciers in the Southern Hemisphere (Porter, 2000, review paper) were also smaller than at least in the Neoglacial. We do not cite Porter’s paper for the reason that we actually do not know how to explain this – orbital reason does not work for the SH, but if we do cite it (which is fair) we have to say that during the Early to Mid Holocene glaciers were smaller than later in both Northen, and Southern Hemisphere, including the tropics, which would contradict to our statement in the Holocene chapter and the bullet. It is probably too late to rise these questions, but still just to draw your attention.

In the world of the warmists it is always ‘too late’ for facts.

The CRU just completed a lame white-washing of the entire mess, focusing in on safe and uncontroversial reports and avoiding any claims of skeptics. Thus they have completed CRUs credibility crash. CRU will never be a respected voice in science again. Their silly investigative report does have more than one interesting admission:

Although [1] inappropriate statistical tools with the potential for producing misleading results have been used by some other groups, presumably by accident rather than design, in [2] the CRU papers that we examined we did not come across any inappropriate usage although [3] the methods they used may not have been the best for the purpose. It is not clear, however, that better methods would have produced significantly different results. [4] The published work also contains many cautions about the limitations of the data and their
interpretation.

Numbering is mine. What this says is important – and damning. Clearly the short time this investigation took (3 weeks by some estimates) was focused solely on damage control and covering up. That is how long it takes to craft this kind of legalese blabber (I know, having to help our government craft similar careful language). Let’s dissect this statement into its elements (as I have noted).

[1] CRU is now admitting Michael Mann’s ‘trick’ of covering up inconvenient tree ring data from 1960 onward (which would have created enormous error bars on the historic temperature record derived from tree rings) was clearly improper. What Mann did was erase CRUs ‘scientific results’ and replace it graphically with incoherent data to create his infamous hockey stick. CRU has clearly distanced itself from Mann’s little ‘trick’.

[2] The investigation discovered the math used was not in error – but, and this is a big ‘but’ …

[3] The math applied was not the right math for the assessment and conclusions. This actually violates the claims in [1], but hey, these people are trying to cover up a major screw up here. Cut them some slack. Anyway, I find it interesting the investigation concluded the statistics applied were not correct for the analyses or the results.

[4] The real kicker here is the claim CRU warned everyone the results and methods used might have produced shoddy results. A good segment of the world is running around measuring carbon footprints because these people made claims they now admit could easily be wrong.

There’s more admissions hidden throughout the report, for example:

[1] With very noisy data sets a great deal of judgement has to be used. [2] Decisions have to be made on whether to omit pieces of data that appear to be aberrant. These are all matters of experience and judgement. [3] The potential for misleading results arising from selection bias is very great in this area. [4] It is regrettable that so few professional statisticians have been involved in this work because it is fundamentally statistical. Under such circumstances there must be an obligation on researchers to document the judgemental decisions they have made so that the work can in principle be replicated by others.

Statement [1] clearly notes that the historical temperature record derived from proxies is mostly guessing, not hard fact. Tree ring data especially has too many other factors driving ring size and density of the rings to confidently claim you can extrapolate a regional temperature (let alone a global one). In addition, temperature is a step function in tree rings – either on or off, either dormant or growing. Above a certain trigger temperature, growth is NOT dependent on temperature at all.

Statements [2] & [3] combined is an admission that CRU filtered out some data in their analysis. They selected data in a manner that changed the result. They selected data in a manner that ensured the result would be in line with global warming theories. Statement [2] admits to the filtering of input data, statement [3] admits this filtering altered the conclusions.

Statement [4] is an admission CRU needed outside help and some skeptical eyes to stop them from creating biased inputs which created biased outputs using improper statistics.

The report really is a fascinating exercise in admitting to wholesale screw ups without not actually doing so. Give credit where credit is due, these people know how to produce finely crafted spin. Sadly for them, there are those of us who know how to decompose this propaganda back into its normal, blunt form.

So how wrong where CRU – and by extension the IPCC? Well that brings us to the smoking gun. Willis Eschenbach posted on WUWT another brilliant tutorial, this time on how to present data for effect. He shows the following graph of that statistical residue Lindzen mentioned (click to enlarge):

Horrifying isn’t it? The eye is drawn to that bold red line (in degrees Fahrenheit in order to increase the upward slop). What the eye misses is that light blue line showing the actual annual variation. When one studies that line we see it is as warm now as in the 1930’s and 1940’s (blowing another hole into the warmists doom and gloom screeds).

When the data is presented this way, that statistical residue looks down right scary. But Willis shows the SAME DATA in another form. He shows the temperature variation by year and by month, and he shows it not as a difference (tenths of a degree) but in the actual temperature value:

Now what we see is a bunch of mild variation around a very stable and regular pattern. Willis does a great job of emphasizing the true context of the Chicken Little cries:

Presented in this fashion, we are reminded that the annual variation in temperature is much, much larger than the ~ 1°F change in US temperatures over the last century. The most recent year, 2009 [the bold red line], is … well … about average.

You can misrepresent data by the way you chose to display it. Michael Mann covered up recent tree ring data by splicing on actual temperature measurement data. He did this to cover up the fact the recent data proved tree rings don’t accurately represent temperature. The CRU and others have exaggerated the recent variation in global temperature. But the reality is these tenth  of a degree variation are beyond the ability of most biological systems to detect, let alone be threatened by.

All living creatures, great and small, can deal with temperature changes on the order of tenths of a degree. We all do it every year as temperatures shift by many tens of degrees. The planet has experienced times warmer and colder than now, all without the benefit of humankind being around to declare how superior it is to nature.

The fact is, the global warming con is an attempt by the left to prey on the good will and concerns of people (our inherent green side) and steal our money and independence. The left want to run the world, and they concocted this myth that the world was about to end to convince people to let them lead in order to save us all.

The only thing we need saving from is con artists with misleading graphs and poor judgement in selecting what data is valid.

Major Update: It seems real scientists and mathematicians are distancing themselves big time from Dr Mann’s little graphical ‘trick’:

A key piece of evidence in climate change science was slammed as “exaggerated” on Wednesday by the UK’s leading statistician, in a vindication of claims that global warming sceptics have been making for years.

Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society, said that a graph shaped like an ice hockey stick that has been used to represent the recent rise in global temperatures had been compiled using “inappropriate” methods.

It used a particular statistical technique that exaggerated the effect [of recent warming],” he said.

Everyone with a high school grasp of science knows not to mix data and claim they are all the same. Mann should be banned from all computing devices (except his fingers of course) for the crap he pulled with that graph. Hand goes on to deny the false data invalidates the results it purports to show. A sloppy sleight of hand in itself.