HANOVER, MD, May 8, 2008 – Research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS^®).

On April 30, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ordered the Interior Department to decide by May 15 whether polar bears should be listed under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act.

Professor J. Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School says, “To list a species that is currently in good health as an endangered species requires valid forecasts that its population would decline to levels that threaten its viability. In fact, the polar bear populations have been increasing rapidly in recent decades due to hunting restrictions. Assuming these restrictions remain, the most appropriate forecast is to assume that the upward trend would continue for a few years, then level off.

“These studies are meant to inform the US Fish and Wildlife Service about listing the polar bear as endangered. After careful examination, my co-authors and I were unable to find any references to works providing evidence that the forecasting methods used in the reports had been previously validated. In essence, they give no scientific basis for deciding one way or the other about the polar bear.”

Prof. Armstrong and colleagues originally undertook their audit at the request of the State of Alaska. The subsequent study, “Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public Policy Forecasting Audit,” is by Prof. Armstrong, Kesten G. Green of Monash University in Australia, and Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. It is scheduled to appear in the September/October issue of the INFORMS journal Interfaces.

Professor Armstrong is author of Long-Range Forecasting, the most frequently cited book on forecasting methods, and Principles of Forecasting. He is a co-founder of the Journal of Forecasting, the International Journal of Forecasting, the International Symposium on Forecasting, and forecastingprinciples.com.

The authors examined nine U.S. Geological Survey Administrative Reports. The studies include “Forecasting the Wide-Range Status of Polar Bears at Selected Times in the 21^st Century” by Steven C. Amstrup et. al. and “Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea II: Demography and Population Growth in Relation to Sea Ice Conditions” by Christine M. Hunter et al.

Prof. Armstrong and his colleagues concluded that the most relevant study, Amstrup et al. properly applied only 15% of relevant forecasting principles and that the second study, Hunter et al. only 10%, while 46% were clearly contravened and 23% were apparently contravened.

Further, they write, the Geologic Survey reports do not adequately substantiate the authors’ assumptions about changes to sea ice and polar bears’ ability to adapt that are key to the recommendations.

Therefore, the authors write, a key feature of the U.S. Geological Survey reports is not scientifically supported.

The consequence, they maintain, is significant: The Interior Department cannot use the series of reports as a sound scientific basis for a decision about listing the polar bear as an endangered species.

Prof. Armstrong testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works on January 30, 2008 in a hearing, “Examining Threats and Protections for the Polar Bear.” A portion of the testimony can be viewed on a website partly supported by Prof. Armstrong and questioning climate change http://theclimatebet.com/" title="http://theclimatebet.com/" target="_blank"http://theclimatebet.com/.

About INFORMS

The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS^®) is an international scientific society with 10,000 members, including Nobel Prize laureates, dedicated to applying scientific methods to help improve decision-making, management, and operations. Members of INFORMS work in business, government, and academia. They are represented in fields as diverse as airlines, health care, law enforcement, the military, financial engineering, and telecommunications. The INFORMS website is www.informs.org. More information about operations research is at www.scienceofbetter.org.

Link

By Walter Williams

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com" title="http://www.JewishWorldReview.com" target="_blank"http://www.JewishWorldReview.... | Now that another Earth Day has come and gone, let's look at some environmentalist predictions that they would prefer we forget.

At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind." C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, "The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed." In 1968, Professor Paul Ehrlich, Vice President Gore's hero and mentor, predicted there would be a major food shortage in the U.S. and "in the 1970s ... hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have declined to 22.6 million. Ehrlich's predictions about England were gloomier: "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000."

In 1972, a report was written for the Club of Rome warning the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury and silver by 1985, tin by 1987 and petroleum, copper, lead and natural gas by 1992. Gordon Taylor, in his 1970 book "The Doomsday Book," said Americans were using 50 percent of the world's resources and "by 2000 they [Americans] will, if permitted, be using all of them." In 1975, the Environmental Fund took out full-page ads warning, "The World as we know it will likely be ruined by the year 2000."

Harvard University biologist George Wald in 1970 warned, "... civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." That was the same year that Sen. Gaylord Nelson warned, in Look Magazine, that by 1995 "... somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct."

It's not just latter-day doomsayers who have been wrong; doomsayers have always been wrong. In 1885, the U.S. Geological Survey announced there was "little or no chance" of oil being discovered in California, and a few years later they said the same about Kansas and Texas. In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior said American oil supplies would last only another 13 years. In 1949, the Secretary of the Interior said the end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight. Having learned nothing from its earlier erroneous claims, in 1974 the U.S. Geological Survey advised us that the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. The fact of the matter, according to the American Gas Association, there's a 1,000 to 2,500 year supply.

Here are my questions: In 1970, when environmentalists were making predictions of manmade global cooling and the threat of an ice age and millions of Americans starving to death, what kind of government policy should we have undertaken to prevent such a calamity? When Ehrlich predicted that England would not exist in the year 2000, what steps should the British Parliament have taken in 1970 to prevent such a dire outcome? In 1939, when the U.S. Department of the Interior warned that we only had oil supplies for another 13 years, what actions should President Roosevelt have taken? Finally, what makes us think that environmental alarmism is any more correct now that they have switched their tune to manmade global warming?

Here are a few facts: Over 95 percent of the greenhouse effect is the result of water vapor in Earth's atmosphere. Without the greenhouse effect, Earth's average temperature would be zero degrees Fahrenheit. Most climate change is a result of the orbital eccentricities of Earth and variations in the sun's output. On top of that, natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined.

Jewish World Review

Get it NOW, you enviro-wackos?

Global Warming Takes a Break for Nearly 20 Years?

The UK Telegraph reports on April 30: “Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate, scientists have said. Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a "lull" for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged. This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.” End article excerpt.

This significant new study adds to a growing body of peer-reviewed literature and other scientific analyses challenging former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen’s March 2008 presentation of data from the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office found the Earth has had “no statistically significant warming since 1995.” (LINK)

Australian paleoclimate scientist Dr. Bob Carter also noted in 2007 that “the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998.” Carter explained that the “temperature stasis has occurred despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million (or 4 per cent) in atmospheric CO2.” (LINK)

The May 1study in Nature essentially finds that global warming will have stopped for nearly 20 years (1998 until 2015). According to the UK Telegraph article; “Writing in Nature, the scientists said: ‘Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic [man-made] warming.’”

The UK Telegraph article by reporter Charles Clover noted the significant deficiencies in UN climate models: “The IPCC currently does not include in its models actual records of such events as the strength of the Gulf Stream and the El Nino cyclical warming event in the Pacific, which are known to have been behind the warmest year ever recorded in 1998.”

The evidence-based data showing the Earth’s failure to continue warming has confounded the promoters of man-made climate fear. The American people have consistently rejected climate alarm as a Gallup Poll released on Earth Day 2008 shows the American public’s concern about man-made global warming is unchanged from 1989. Gore's $300 million dollar campaign to promote climate fear is attempting to convince Americans that they face a climate "crisis" despite the new accumulating scientific evidence to the contrary.

The latest peer-reviewed scientific data showing the dominance of natural climate variability appears to be directly at odds with Gore's central climate message. On May 25, 2006, Gore declared, "We are the most powerful force of nature now. We are literally changing the relationship between the Earth and the Sun." Gore added that mankind's CO2 emissions have "the capacity to bring civilization itself to a dead halt." (LINK) [Note: Unfortunately, children seem to be the most susceptible to Gore's and others baseless climate doomsday message. See: New York Times article: Children may be driving alarm over global warming. (LINK) Also, read more about global warming propaganda campaign aimed at kids here. ]

This new study in Nature further reveals a “tipping point” for the promoters of climate alarm. 2007 and now 2008 have challenged man-made climate fear as new peer-reviewed studies continue to debunk rising CO2 fears. A U.S. Senate minority report reveals over 400 scientists dissented from man-made climate fears, and more and more scientists continue to declare themselves skeptical of a man-made climate “crisis” in 2008.

Sampling of key inconvenient developments for promoters of a man-made climate “crisis” so far in 2008: (See also related link at bottom of this report)

1) Oceans Cooling! Scientists puzzled by “mystery of global warming's missing heat” (LINK)

2) New Data from NASA’s Aqua satellite is showing “greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide.” (LINK )

3) Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer, formerly of NASA, found not one peer-reviewed paper has 'ruled out a natural cause for most of our recent warmth' (LINK)

4) UN IPCC in 'Panic Mode' as Earth Fails to Warm, Scientist says (LINK )

5) UN IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri “to look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.” (LINK)

6) New scientific analysis shows Sun “could account for as much as 69% of the increase in Earth's average temperature” (LINK) & (LINK)

7) Scientists find dust free atmosphere may be responsible for up to .36 F rise in global temps (LINK)

8) Analysis in peer-reviewed journal finds cold periods – not warm periods – see increase in floods, droughts, storms, famine (LINK)

9) New York Times Laments Media's incorrect hyping of frogs and global warming (LINK)

10) Prominent hurricane expert reconsiders global warming's impact (LINK)

11) MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen’s March 2008 presentation of data from the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office found the Earth has had “no statistically significant warming since 1995.”- (LINK)

12) An International team of scientists released a March 2008 report to counter UN IPCC, declaring: “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate” (LINK)

13) Emitting MORE CO2 may 'be good for life on Earth', says climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer, formerly of NASA in May 2008. (LINK)

14) New Report finds global sea ice GROWING: ‘World sea ice in April 2008 reached levels that were ‘unprecedented&rsqu o; for the month of April in over 25 years.’ (LINK)

The EPW Press Blog

Good news. This is what happens when the real scientist get involved.

And I’ve noticed a change lately in that many (mostly scientists) are now referring to “climate change” rather than “global warming”.

“Climate Change” is real and very well documented. The climate has been changing, sometimes quite drastically and even rather suddenly, ever since the Earth first had a climate and long before man came on the scene and the climate will continue to change with or without us. There are much more powerful forces at work that affect global climate including plate tectonics, volcanism, ocean currents, sun spot cycles and slight wobbles in the Earth’s tilt and orbits around the sun and there is nothing we can do to change or influence these forces.

But the question is, or should have been all along; is the Earth really warming for a long enough period of time to declare it more than just an anomaly over much longer trends and more reliable models and even “if” the climate is warming, is it really due to man made activity?

Of course the answer is that the activities of man have little or no effect on large scale global climate and only a very nominal effect on local climates – think of the “heat islands” in large cities during the hot summer months where the temperature in the heavily paved over downtown areas vs. the temperature in greener areas like the ‘burbs and rural areas that can vary by a few degrees. That’s truly man made “warming” but only on a small local scale and it has no real impact on the overall environment. Same with massive deforestation in localized areas – it can have a very real affect on local climates and conditions but not necessarily globally and long term as some would have us believe.

Global warming theories and dire predictions and calls for “action” is what happens when small scale statistics and scientific theories absent true rigorous scientific peer review and challenges are high-jacked by people with purely social, moral and political agendas.   Caramelgal

TEHRAN (AFP) — A top cleric on Friday vowed that Iran would deal a knock-out blow to what he called maniacs in the United States and Israel if they ever attacked the Islamic republic.

"If maniacs in Washington or Tel Aviv seek to take action, the Iranian nation will slap them so hard they will not get off the floor," hardline cleric Ahmad Khatami said in a Friday prayer sermon carried live on state radio.

The Pentagon on Wednesday denied reports of new plans for military options against Iran, which is accused by the United States of seeking nuclear weapons, sponsoring terrorism and meddling in Iraq.

Iran vehemently denies all the charges.

However, Washington has never ruled out a military option in a bid to thwart Iran's nuclear drive, which Tehran insists is solely aimed at peaceful energy production.

The cleric said the fact that the United States had not yet attacked Iran was because it "has not been possible, not that it did not want to."

"Death be upon" Israel for "celebrating the killing of innocent people" in the Gaza Strip, Khatami also said. Iran does not recognise Israel, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the annihilation of the Jewish State.

"Israel should know that these pressures will pave the way for another Intifada which will turn the Israelis' day into night," Khatami said.

Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, accuses Iran of seeking atomic weapons and has urged tougher punitive measures against Tehran, which is already under three sets of UN Security Council sanctions for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

Khatami also took a swipe at US Democrat presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton for her threat to "totally obliterate" Iran if it launched a nuclear attack on Israel.

"Shame on you that your presidents should be weak-willed servants of Israel," he said.

Yeah, yeah, yeah,... Listen up blow hard, the last bigmouth who promised the US a mother-of-all battles, was pulled out of a spidy hole after hgiding like a little girl for months, had his head checked for lice on worldwide TV, and then swung from a gallows.  Asshole.

AFP 

By now most people are aware that the founder of The Weather Channel, John Coleman, said global warming is "the greatest scam in history" last November. On Monday, while speaking at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change being held in New York City, Coleman took his criticisms further by advocating that all those involved in the sale and marketing of carbon credits, including Al Gore, should be sued "to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.” As reported over at the Business & Media Institute by my colleague Jeff Poor (emphasis added throughout, h/t to many):

Coleman also told the audience his strategy for exposing what he called “the fraud of global warming.” He advocated suing those who sell carbon credits, which would force global warming alarmists to give a more honest account of the policies they propose.

“[I] have a feeling this is the opening,” Coleman said. “If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the [witness] stand to testify, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.”

How delicious. Of course, for those that are interested, Nobel Laureate Gore was invited to speak at this conference -- was even offered his normal fee to attend! -- but refused. As reported Monday by Anthony Watts, one of the conference speakers (emphasis added):

I was surprised to learn that Al Gore had been offered an opportunity to address this conference, and his usual $200,000 speaking fee and expenses were met, but that he declined.

I also know that invitations went out to NASA GISS principal scientists Dr. James Hansen, and Dr. Gavin Schmidt weeks ago as evidenced by their writeup of the issue on their blog, RealClimate.org a week or so ago.

They have declined the formal invitation sent, even though it would be easy for them to attend, given that NASA GISS is located just a few blocks away at Columbia University.

Since recent polls indicate that about 50% of Americans remain unconvinced that global warming is a serious issue, it would seem this would be a perfect place for Mr. Gore, Dr. James Hansen, and Dr. Gavin Schmidt to bridge the crevasse.

Exactly, Anthony. Sadly, these folks don't want to speak to the half of the nation not buying into their junk science, for it is so easily exposed as such, and that would bring an end to the fraud.

Of course, one has to wonder how all those that do believe in this myth feel about the fact that the leaders of their cause not only refuse to debate the issue, but won't even attend a conference dealing with it.

Regardless, Coleman on Monday also pointed his finger at The Weather Channel:

"The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced – several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.”

We at NewsBusters share your hopes, John.

Newsbusters

The $300 billion farm bill is being cobbled together by Congress this week. As Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) noted, "It's not just a farm bill. This is a farm and a food and an energy bill."

As Otto von Bismarck quipped, "Laws are like sausage. It's better not to see them being made." Let's take a look at these three aspects of this unappetizing piece of sausage.

First, what do the farmers get? Answer: A lot. Last year, net farm income reached a record level of nearly $89 billion due to high crop prices. Farm household income averaged $84,000 in 2007, according to the Environmental Working Group (the 2006 average for all U.S. households was $66,000). Despite such good times, the federal government showered $5 billion in direct payments on 1.4 million farmers.

These direct payments have nothing to do with crop productivity or a safety net in case of low prices—they are basically gifts to farmers just because they are farmers. In fact, farmers with gross incomes up to $2.5 million have been eligible for these payments. President Bush wants to cap that at $200,000 in income, but the House is considering a cap of $500,000, and the Senate voted to cap the payments at $750,000 per year in income. Overall, Congress shaved just 2 percent off of the direct payments of $5 billion per year over the next four years. While this is a barely discernible improvement, one would think record high farm incomes combined with a world food crisis would make this a good time for Congress to scrap farming subsidies altogether.

It is true that about two-thirds of farm-bill spending funds nutrition programs such as school lunches and food stamps. Lawmakers added $10 billion to the food stamp program to help lower-income Americans address higher food prices. But why are food prices higher in the first place? Part of the reason is the federal government's subsidies and its mandate to turn food into fuel—which brings us to the legislation's energy policy madness.

In December, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act, which mandated that the U.S. produce 9 billion gallons of conventional biofuels this year. The Act requires that 15 billion gallons of conventional biofuels be produced by 2015 and that 36 billion gallons of conventional and "advanced" biofuels be produced by 2022. How does this affect food prices?

Higher corn prices result from biofuel mandates and subsidies, which encourage farmers to plant fewer acres of wheat and soybeans—which in turn raises their prices. In addition, corn is the chief feed grain for which producers of beef, poultry, and pork must pay higher prices which they will eventually pass along to consumers. In 2006, a bushel of corn sold for just under $2; today it sells for nearly $6.

Currently, most biofuels are produced by turning corn into ethanol. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the 2008 corn crop will be 14.6 billion bushels, of which 3.2 billion[*] bushels will be fermented into ethanol. In other words, about 22 percent of our corn crop will be floating out the tailpipes of our automobiles next year.

The new farm bill contains a small gesture in the direction of sanity by reducing bioethanol subsidies from 51 cents per gallon to 45 cents per gallon. This should reduce the price of a bushel of corn by about 3 cents, according to the Des Moines Register. On the other hand, Congress is trying get around the unintended consequences of its biofuels policy by offering $1.01 per gallon subsidy for so-called cellulosic ethanol. Large-scale production of cellulosic ethanol has yet to take off, so the farm bill also disperses $400 million in tax credits in the hope of jumpstarting such production. In addition, the bill extends the tariff on imported ethanol until 2012.

The biofuel mandate is not the only reason for higher food prices—higher oil and fertilizer prices as well as commodity speculation also contribute substantially.

But there's no excuse for Congress to make matters worse with this farm bill. As Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) declared, "Negotiators managed to avoid every opportunity to reform wasteful, outdated subsidies while piling on additional layers of unnecessary spending." As a consequence, Americans can look forward to thinner wallets as they struggle to fuel their cars and feed their kids.

Ronald Bailey is reason's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution is now available from Prometheus Books.

[*]: Due to an editing error, this originally read million.

Reason Magazine

"A cool-water anomaly known as La Niña occupied the tropical Pacific Ocean throughout 2007 and early 2008. In April 2008, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that while the La Niña was weakening, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation-a larger-scale, slower-cycling ocean pattern-had shifted to its cool phase."

"Look out California agriculture. The wine industry, fruits and nut growers will be hit with a shorter growing season and more threats of frost, among other things."

• In 1905, PDO switched to a warm phase
• In 1946, PDO switched to a cool phase
• In 1977, PDO switched to a warm phase

"Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, ‘These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.'" [What an absolute load of bull.  So, no matter WHAT happens, it's all our fault?  Socialist assholes.  --ed.]

Hooey, for a new discovery in Sweden has completely debunked this consensus, resulting in a total rewrite of climate history while bringing into serious question global warming theories espoused by Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his sycophant devotees.

Think green media members will be falling over themselves to report this new finding?

While you ponder, consider the evidence supplied by the British Telegraph Thursday (emphasis added):

The world's oldest tree has been found in Sweden, a tenacious spruce that first took root just after the end of the last ice age, more than 9,500 years ago.

The tree has rewritten the history of the climate in the region, revealing that it was much warmer at that time and the ice had disappeared earlier than thought. [...]

It had been thought that this region was still in the grip of the ice age but the tree shows it was much warmer, even than today, [Prof Leif Kullman at Umeå University] says.

“Spruces are the species that can best give us insight about climate change,” he says.

The summers 9,500 years ago were warmer than today, though there has been a rapid recent rise as a result of climate change that means modern climate is rapidly catching up.

Hmmm. So, as a result of this find, we now know that summers in Sweden were not only much warmer 9,500 years ago than the consensus view used to be, but ALSO warmer than today...even after all that awful carbon dioxide that man has released into the atmosphere in the past couple of centuries.

Yes, I'm sure media will be all over this story in the coming days...not!

*****Update: As a post facto aside, this find should also point out how irrelevant a "consensus" is as it pertains to science, for new discoveries are always debunking and challenging conventional wisdom.

Sadly, folks in the media, and climate alarmists looking to stifle debate, refuse to understand this inconvenient truth.

That said, energy and financial policies SHOULD NOT be based on supposedly consensus views of science for EXACTLY this reason, for a lot of time, money, and resources could be devoted to a "solution" to a "problem" which ends up NOT existing.

 We need to shut this non-sense down NOW folks...

Newsbusters

On Friday, it was revealed by ABC News that one of the famous shots of supposed Antarctic ice shelves in the film was actually a computer-generated image from the 2004 science fiction blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow." [audio available here]

Adding delicious insult to injury, this was presented by one of ABC's foremost global warming alarmists Sam Champion during Friday's "20/20":

SAM CHAMPION (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) Al Gore's 2006 documentary, 'An Inconvenient Truth," makes the same point with actual video of ice shelves calving. Which shots have more impact?

AL GORE (FORMER UNITED STATES VICE PRESIDENT)

And if you were flying over it in a helicopter, you'd see it's 700 feet tall. They are so majestic.

SAM CHAMPION (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) Wait a minute, that shot looks just like the one in the opening credits of "The Day After Tomorrow."

KAREN GOULEKAS (VISUAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR)

Yeah, that's, that's our shot. That's a fully computer generated shot. There's nothing real in there.

SAM CHAMPION (ABC NEWS)

(Voiceover) Audiences expect Hollywood to twist fact into fiction. But Gore's documentary does the opposite, using a fake shot to make a real point, that ice shelves are disappearing, and vanishing ice means global warming.

Apparently, ABC tried to get a comment from Gore concerning the matter, but none was forthcoming:

Strike three, Al...

Newsbusters

DUBAI — A fatwa has been issued by Dubai Islamic Affairs Department (DIAD) to ban printing of names that include the 99 names of Almighty God such as Abdul Rahman, Abdullah, Abdul Salam as well as names of prophets and saints on the labels of sample bottles provided by hospitals and laboratories to the patients.

Part 1

In just one year. Remember the election in 2006?

Thought you might like to read the following:

A little over one year ago:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;

2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;

3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;

2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon;

3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);

4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);

5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;

6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it!

Remember it’s Congress that makes law not the President. He has to work with what’s handed to him.

Quote of the Day........’My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.’ — Barack Obama

Part 2:

Taxes...Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing.

www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151 .html

Taxes under Clinton 1999 Taxes under Bush 2008

Single making 30K - tax $8,400 Single making 30K - tax $4,500

Single making 50K - tax $14,000 Single making 50K - tax $12,500

Single making 75K - tax $23,250 Single making 75K - tax $18,750

Married making 60K - tax $16,800 Married making 60K- tax $9,000

Married making 75K - tax $21,000 Married making 75K - tax $18,750

Married making 125K - tax $38,750 Married making 125K - tax $31,250

Both democratic candidates will return to the higher tax rates

It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can’t wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam somebody out of some money and they don’t even know what happened.

PART 3:

You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Read this:

Boy, am I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be RIDICULOUS.

I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I have included the URL’s for verification of all the following facts.

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.

Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2...

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2...

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TR...

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.

Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TR...

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TR...

30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TR...

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.

Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSC...

9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TR...

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular,

their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TR...

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.

Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National Policy Institute, ‘estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average

cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.’

Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinst...

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.

Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general7...

14. ‘The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States .’

Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articles...

The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.

Are we THAT stupid?

With thanks to MissEdie

Change is often a bad thing: It goes without saying that sometimes laws, traditions, and moral practices should be changed, but it shouldn't need to be said that change for its own sake is not a plus either.

Unfortunately, there are far too many people who treat massive changes, changes that have the potential to permanently impact our society in a negative way, very cavalierly. Sure, we'll change the definition of marriage, legalize drugs, weaken the Christian church, allow countless numbers of illegal aliens from a neighboring country to become citizens, etc., etc., etc. -- what could go wrong? A lot, actually.

In fact, if you look back through our history, for every positive change on a large scale, getting rid of slavery for example, you can find multiple significant changes for the worse: like killing children by the millions via abortion and massive increases in illegitimate births because of welfare. That doesn't mean we should avoid change. Let me repeat that: that doesn't mean we should avoid change. However, we should take great care before making massive changes to the way our society works.

People are different: This would seem to be a rather obvious point, but it's one liberals seem to have a great deal of difficulty digesting. In their mind, women and men should be treated as if they have exactly the same predilections and abilities. Different races should perform identically well, in precisely equal percentages, in every activity, and any difference between people must be explained by some sort of unfair societal constraint placed upon the less successful.

However, you must take the uniqueness of the person and the group he's a part of into account. People don't have the same backgrounds, interests, talents, or cultural experiences. Because of that, nothing could be more foolish than to treat every person as if he's an interchangeable widget that should fall into some statistical category to make a bunch of bean counters in D.C. happy.

Most nations are interested in what's good for them: The only thing liberals love better than big government is even bigger government. So, yes, they love using the power of the federal government, but they're even more in love with the idea of building up the United Nations or some other form of world government.

Setting aside the fact that the bigger government gets, the less efficient it becomes, there's another huge problem with the United Nations: it's comprised of individual nations that view the organization as little more than a way to further their own interests, which may oftentimes be in conflict with those of other nations.

The truth is that most people and most nations are primarily interested in taking care of Number One. Moreover, those that don't think that way and feel strongly enough about it to take action beyond a few platitudes or token contributions are few and far between. So since that is the case, any nation that doesn't have strong safeguards for its own national interests in any sort of deal it enters into with other nations or groups of nations, is extremely foolish indeed.

Excellent.  Go forth and read the rest...

Townhall

WASHINGTON -- The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency - a move intended to prevent violent crime but which also is raising concerns about the privacy of innocent people.

Using authority granted by Congress, [Uh, would that be the DEMOCRAT controlled Congress??  --ed.] the government also plans to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained, whether they have been charged or not. The DNA would be collected through a cheek swab, Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Wednesday. That would be a departure from current practice, which limits DNA collection to convicted felons.

Expanding the DNA database, known as CODIS, raises civil liberties questions about the potential for misuse of such personal information, such as family ties and genetic conditions.

Ablin said the DNA collection would be subject to the same privacy laws applied to current DNA sampling. That means none of it would be used for identifying genetic traits, diseases or disorders.

Congress [Again, that would be the DEMOCRAT controlled Congress, right?  --ed.] gave the Justice Department the authority to expand DNA collection in two different laws passed in 2005 and 2006.

There are dozens of federal law enforcement agencies, ranging from the FBI to the Library of Congress Police. The federal government estimates it makes about 140,000 arrests each year.

Justice officials estimate the new collecting requirements would add DNA from an additional 1.2 million people to the database each year.

Those who support the expanded collection believe that DNA sampling could get violent criminals off the streets and prevent them from committing more crimes.

A Chicago study in 2005 found that 53 murders and rapes could have been prevented if a DNA sample had been collected upon arrest.

"Many innocent lives could have been saved had the government began this kind of DNA sampling in the 1990s when the technology to do so first became available," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said. Kyl sponsored the 2005 law that gave the Justice Department this authority.

Thirteen states have similar laws: Alaska, Arizona, California, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

The new regulation would mean that the federal government could store DNA samples of people who are not guilty of any crime, said Jesselyn McCurdy, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. [My God.  I agree with the ACLU on something?  I think I just threw up a little into my mouth...  --ed.]

"Now innocent people's DNA will be put into this huge CODIS database, and it will be very difficult for them to get it out if they are not charged or convicted of a crime," McCurdy said.

If a person is arrested but not convicted, he or she can ask the Justice Department to destroy the sample.  [Oh, THAT's a relief.  --ed.]

The Homeland Security Department - the federal agency charged with policing immigration - supports the new rule.

"DNA is a proven law-enforcement tool," DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said.

The rule would not allow for DNA samples to be collected from immigrants who are legally in the United States or those being processed for admission, unless the person was arrested.

The proposed rule is being published in the Federal Register. That will be followed by a 30-day comment period.

Dude!  Where's my Bill of Rights?

Link 

Over the past half-century, we have become used to planetary scares. In the late Sixties, we were told of a population explosion that would lead to global starvation. Then, a little later, we were warned the world was running out of natural resources. By the Seventies, when global temperatures began to dip, many eminent scientists warned us that we faced a new Ice Age.

But the latest scare, global warming, has engaged the political and opinion-forming classes to a greater extent than any of these.

The readiness to embrace this fashionable belief has led the present Labour Government, enthusiastically supported by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, to commit itself to a policy of drastically cutting back carbon dioxide emissions - at huge cost to the British economy and to the living standards not merely of this generation, but of our children's generation, too.

That is why I have written a book about the subject.

Now, I readily admit that I am not a scientist; but then neither are the vast majority of those who espouse the currently fashionable madness. Moreover, most of those scientists who speak with such certainty about global warming and climate change are not climate scientists, or Earth scientists of any kind, and thus have no special knowledge to contribute.

Those who have to take the key decisions aren't scientists either. They are politicians who, having listened to the opinions of relevant scientists and having studied the evidence, must reach the best decisions they can - just as I did when I was Energy Secretary in Margaret Thatcher's first government in the early Eighties.

But science is only part of the story. Even if the climate scientists can tell us what is happening, and why they think it is happening, they cannot tell us what governments should be doing about it. For this, we also need an understanding of the economics: of what the economic consequences of any warming might be, and, if there is a problem, the best way of dealing with it.

First, then, what is happening? Given that nowadays pretty well every adverse development in the natural world is automatically attributed to global warming, perhaps the most surprising fact about it is that it is not, in fact, happening at all. The truth is that there has so far been no recorded global warming at all this century.

The world's temperature rose about half a degree centigrade during the last quarter of the 20th century; but even the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research - part of Britain's Met Office and a citadel of the current global warming orthodoxy - has now conceded that recorded temperature figures for the first seven years of the 21st century reveal there has been a standstill.

The centre now officially expects global warming to resume at some point between 2009 and 2014.

Maybe it will. But the fact that the present lull was not predicted by any of the complex computer models upon which the global warming orthodoxy relies is clear evidence that the science of what determines the world's temperature is distinctly uncertain and far from "settled".

Cast adrift below, but does global warming propaganda such as Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth paint a false picture of the Earth's future
Genuine climate scientists admit that Earth's climate is determined by hugely complex systems, and reliable prediction is impossible.

That does not mean, of course, that we know nothing. We know that the planet is made habitable only thanks to the warmth we receive from the rays of the sun. Most of this heat bounces back into space; but some of it is trapped by the so-called greenhouse gases which exist in the Earth's atmosphere. If it were not for that, our planet would be far too cold for man to survive.

The most important greenhouse gas is water vapour, including water suspended in clouds. Rather a long way behind, the second most important is carbon dioxide.

The vast bulk of the carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is natural - that is, nothing to do with man. But there is no doubt that ever since the Industrial Revolution in the latter part of the 19th century, man has added greatly to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide by burning carbon - first in the form of coal, and subsequently in the form of oil and gas, too.

So it is reasonable to suppose that, other things being equal, this will have warmed the planet, and that further man-made carbon dioxide emissions will warm it still further.

But in the first place, other things are very far from equal. And in the second place, even if they were, there is no agreement among reputable climate scientists over how much this contributed to the modest late-20th century warming of the planet, and thus may be expected to do so in future.

It is striking that during the 21st century, carbon dioxide emissions have been growing faster than ever - thanks in particular to the rapid growth of the Chinese economy - yet there has been no further global warming at all.

Carbon dioxide, like water vapour and oxygen, is not only completely harmless but is an essential element in our life support system. Not only do we exhale carbon dioxide every time we breathe (indeed, an important cause of the increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is simply the huge increase in the world's population), but plants need to absorb carbon dioxide in order to survive. Without carbon dioxide, there would be no plant life on the planet. And without plant life, there would be no human life either.

While climate scientists disagree about how much further warming continued carbon dioxide emissions might cause, there is an established majority view.

This is articulated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an offshoot of the United Nations, whose view is that 'most' of the modest (0.5 per cent) late-20th century warming was "very likely" caused by man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

And if the growth of such emissions continues unabated, their 'best guess' is that in 100 years' time, the planet will be somewhere between 1.8 and 4 per cent warmer than it is today, with a mid-point of a shade under 3 per cent. (Incidentally, this was published before the early 21st century warming standstill was officially acknowledged, so was not taken into account.)

Alistair Darling told us in his recent Budget speech that this would have "catastrophic economic and social consequences". But that is just alarmist poppycock.

Let's look at just two of the alleged "catastrophic" consequences of global warming: the threat to food production, leading to mass starvation; and the threat to human health, leading to disease and death.

So far as food production is concerned, it is not clear why a warmer climate would be a problem at all. Even the IPCC concedes that for a warming of anything up to 3 per cent, "globally, the potential for food production is projected to increase". Yes: increase.

As to health, in its most recent report, the IPCC found only one outcome which they ranked as "virtually certain" to happen - and that was "reduced human mortality from decreased cold exposure".

This echoes a study done by our own Department of Health which predicted that by the 2050s, the UK would suffer an increase in heat-related deaths by 2,000 a year, and a decrease in cold-related mortality of 20,000 deaths a year - something that ministers have been curiously silent about.

The IPCC systematically exaggerates the likely adverse effects of any warming that might occur because estimates of the likely impact of the global warming it projects for the next 100 years are explicitly based on two assumptions, both of them absurd.

The first is that while the developed world can adapt to warming, the developing world cannot.

The second is that even in the developed world, the capacity to adapt is constrained by the limits of existing technology. In other words, there will be no technological development over the next 100 years.

So far as the first of these two assumptions is concerned, if necessary, the developed world will focus its overseas aid on ensuring that the developing countries acquire the required ability to adapt. The second is, of course, ludicrous - notably in the case of food production, where, with the development of bio-engineering and genetic modification, the world is currently in the early stages of a genuine revolution in agricultural technology.

All in all, given that global warming produces benefits as well as costs, it is far from clear that the currently projected warming, far from being "catastrophic", will do any net harm at all.

To which it will be replied that while that may be so for the world as a whole, the people in the developing world will indeed suffer.

But the greatest curse of the developing world is mass poverty, and the malnutrition, disease and unnecessary death that poverty brings. To impede their escape from poverty by denying them the benefits of cheap carbon-based energy would damage them far more than global warming ever could.

Nonetheless, on the basis of its deeply flawed assumptions, the IPCC predicts that if the warming is as much as 4 degrees centigrade by the end of this century, then the economic cost would be a cut of between 1 per cent and 5 per cent of what world output (GDP) would otherwise have been - with the developed world suffering much less, and the developing world much more than this.

But supposing the developing world suffers as much as a 10 per cent loss of GDP from what it would have been in 100 years' time.

That means that by the year 2100, people in the developing world, instead of being some 9.5 times better off than they are today, will be 'only' 8.5 times better off (which, incidentally, will still leave them better off than people in the developed world today). And, remember, all this is on the basis of the IPCC's own grotesquely inflated estimate of the likely damage from further warming.

So the fundamental question is: how big a sacrifice should the present generation make now in the hope of avoiding this?

The cost of the drastic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions which we are told is necessary would be huge. The Government has introduced legislation to force us to cut emissions by between 60 per cent and 80 per cent by 2050, and Tony Blair, as self-appointed head of a group of "experts", last month declared that "emissions in the richer countries will have to fall close to zero".

One thing is clear: the "feelgood" measures so popular among some sections of the middle classes, from driving a hybrid car and having a wind turbine on one's roof to not leaving the television set on standby, are trivial to the point of total irrelevance. What would be required is for all transport to be 100 per cent electric, and all electricity to be generated by nuclear power.

To cut back carbon dioxide emissions on the scale the present Labour Government (supported by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats) is demanding would require a fundamental restructuring of the economy, involving a rise in the cost of energy dwarfing anything we have seen so far.

No doubt we could afford this hardship if it made sense. But does it? The UK accounts for only 2 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Even if the entire European Union adopted this policy, that accounts for only 15 per cent of global emissions.

By contrast, China - which has already overtaken the U.S. as the biggest single emitter - has said that there is no way it will agree to a cap on its carbon dioxide emissions for the foreseeable future. And India has said precisely the same.

Both of them point out that it was the industrialised West, not they, that caused the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations during the last century, and that it is now their turn to catch up.

Also, that their emissions per head of population, although rising fast, are still well below those of the U.S. and Europe; and that their overriding priority is - quite righ