Climategate: The Shaming of “Scientific American”

Pity Scientific American. Little did the magazine’s editors know when putting together their February issue that their boneheaded article Negating “Climategate”: Copenhagen Talks and Climate Science Survive Stolen E-Mail Controversy now reads as if it were written by David Biello somewhere around 1993. Oh, well, back when this nonsense was written (December?) some people still believed the Himalayan glaciers were about to disappear, not to mention the Amazonian rainforests. Nor did we know that not just the East Anglia CRU, but also our own NASA had been playing fast and loose with AGW temperature facts, for some reason needing a FOIA to cough up data that should be public record in such a scientific endeavor. The poor editors of SA are taking a drubbing in the comments, which they richly deserve.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Bin Laden is apparently jumping on the “global warming bandwagon.” I think we should give him an Oscar!

Ma Barack Shows up to wag the finger at the Republicans.... Whine Whine Whine

Transparent Arrogance

(From Atlas Shrugs)

Am I the only one who found today's giant press fest of Obama's drop into the Republicans' retreat gratuitous and hysterical?

In an administration famous for its polarizing partisanship, its thuggish non-negotiating posture and its demonization of anyone who disagrees, Obama deigned to talk to Republicans today. Yes, it's true. It's true! And it was such a huge deal, so out of the box, that the entire exchange was given full court press. That's right, so rare is any non-statist inclusion that the whole GOP-Obama meet up was aired (question and answer) live on cable news channels.

I think this is Obama's first and only act of transparency. Rest assured that you'll be hearing about how the prince generously met with Republicans for the next three years (thanks, in large part, to the Brown and recent Gubernatorial rout):

Responding to a series of pre-cooked questions from Republicans at their retreat in Baltimore today, President Obama called bulls— er, Bolshevik, on many of their objections.

“if you were to listen to the debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you’d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot,” Obama told the GOP about health reform. “That’s how you guys presented it.” Obama finger-shakin at the GOP

"The notion that this was a radical package is just not true," Mr. Obama said. "I am not an ideologue."

READ THE WHOLE THING!

Seven Mountains of Influence we All Live in....

My friend Barry Kolb has just returned from a meeting where it seems like the influencers on our society was reviewed. Here's a pretty good video explaining this. Lance Wallnau was the man who first developed this idea several years ago. I'm glad to see it becoming part of our "Churchspeak".

545 PEOPLE by Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army and Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone, are responsible.

They and they alone, have the power.

They and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Osama bin Laden is an AGW Global Warming theorist....This is truly a laugh out loud

This is amazing. OBL is condemning the USA for Global Warming. Gee, what a great bunch to hang out with. LAUGHING OUT LOUD

Bin Laden blasts US for climate change

The Associated Press washingtonpost.com
Friday, January 29, 2010; 6:52 AM

CAIRO -- Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called in a new audiotape for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming.

In the tape, aired in part on Al-Jazeera television Friday, bin Laden warns of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt.

He says the world should "stop consuming American products" and "refrain from using the dollar," according to a transcript on Al-Jazeera's Web site.

The new message, whose authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, comes after a bin Laden tape released last week in which he endorsed a failed attempt to blow up an American airliner on Christmas Day.

Summary of this year versus last year's State of the Union Speeches

And THAT is what I heard last night from the Whiner in Chief..

This would be the ONE THING that would kill off a Sarah Palin Run for POTUS

Hillary Clinton may run against Obama.......She will do even better if she makes Sarah her VEEP.

The chatter has increased in recent days about Clinton leaving the cabinet sometime in the first term, likely over some matter of principle, so that she can position herself to challenge Obama in 2012. Perhaps it is just wishful thinking on the part of those Democrats who have already grown tired of Obama. What is true is that Clinton can still mobilize the political infrastructure necessary to mount an effective challenge to the sitting president. A primary challenge against a sitting president whose approval numbers are above 50 percent and one mounted against an incumbent who is below 50 percent are two very different things, a fact of which the Clinton political team is surely aware.

Paul Krugman, Liberal, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Progressive HATE'S Obamanomics

In response to the State of the Union message last night Paul Krugman, a favorite of Liberals, wrote a piece.

Obama Liquidates Himself

A spending freeze? That’s the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback?

It’s appalling on every level.

It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment. Jonathan Zasloff writes that Obama seems to have decided to fire Tim Geithner and replace him with “the rotting corpse of Andrew Mellon” (Mellon was Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, who according to Hoover told him to “liquidate the workers, liquidate the farmers, purge the rottenness”.)

It’s bad long-run fiscal policy, shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.

READ THE WHOLE THING

Father, Son and Holy Scripture - How Mainline Christianity deals with Holy Spirit

"Jesus answered: Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?'" (John 14:9).

The disciples had been with Jesus for three years. They'd seen miracles - dead men came back to life, the sick were healed, and water was turned to wine. These were but a few of the hundreds of miracles they saw Jesus perform. However, even after these experiences, they lacked one important thing - intimacy with Jesus. They didn't really know Jesus.

This must have been a great disappointment to Jesus. He'd invested so much into developing a close and intimate relationship with the twelve. Consider that they spent three years with their Master. They learned about Him during those years. However, they had knowledge without intimacy. They experienced God's power individually and He even performed miracles through their own lives. Sometimes it is easier to do the work of God without the intimacy with God.

A friend once commented about the current condition of much of the mainline churches today: "You'd think the trinity was the Father, Son and Holy Scriptures versus the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There's never been a better description of the Church today.

But, alas, this is a challenge to my own walk with God. It is easy for me to fall into this trap of working so hard for Jesus that I forget to work with Jesus. Jesus desires intimacy more than works. He tells us in John 15:5: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned." Whatever works we do must be a fruit of our intimacy with Him.

Lord, help us not to just know about you. We desire to know you.

Os Hillman

What Was Early Christianity Like?

The three distinguishing marks of the early church were: separation from the world, unconditional love and childlike obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Separation from the World

"No one can serve two masters," declared Jesus to his disciples (Matt. 6:24). However, Christians have spent the greater portion of the past two millenniums apparently trying to prove Jesus wrong. We have told ourselves that we can indeed have both-the things of God and the things of this world. Many of us live our lives no differently than do conservative non-Christians, except for the fact that we attend church regularly each week. We watch the same entertainment. We share the same concerns about the problems of this world. And we are frequently just as involved in the world's commercial and materialistic pursuits. Often, our being "not of this world" exists in theory more than in practice.

But the church was not originally like that. The first Christians lived under a completely different set of principles and values than the rest of mankind. They rejected the world's entertainment, honors, and riches. They were already citizens of another kingdom, and they listened to the voice of a different Master. This was as true of the second century church as it was of the first.

The Letter to Diognetus, the work of an unknown author, written in about 130, describes Christians to the Romans as follows: "They dwell in their own countries simply as sojourners.... They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time, they surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men but are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned. They are put to death, but [will be] restored to life. They are poor, yet they make many rich. They possess few things; yet, they abound in all. They are dishonored, but in their very dishonor are glorified.... And those who hate them are unable to give any reason for their hatred."

Because the earth wasn't their home, the early Christians could say without reservation, like Paul, "to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21). Justin Martyr explained to the Romans, "Since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men put us to death. Death is a debt we must all pay anyway."

A second-century elder exhorted his congregation, "Brothers, let us willingly leave our sojourn in this present world so we can do the will of Him who called us. And let us not fear to depart out of this world,... deeming the things of this world as not belonging to us, and not fixing our desires upon them.... The Lord declares, 'No servant can serve two masters.' If we desire, then, to serve both God and Money, it will be unprofitable for us. 'For what will it profit if a man gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?' This world and the next are two enemies.... We cannot therefore be the friends of both."

Cyprian, the respected overseer of the church in Carthage, stressed a similar theme in a letter he wrote to a Christian friend: "The one peaceful and trustworthy tranquility, the one security that is solid, firm, and never changing, is this: for a man to withdraw from the distractions of this world, anchor himself to the firm ground of salvation, and lift his eyes from earth to heaven.... He who is actually greater than the world can crave nothing, can desire nothing, from this world. How stable, how unshakable is that safeguard, how heavenly is the protection in its never-ending blessings-to be free from the snares of this entangling world, to be purged from the dregs of earth, and fitted for the light of eternal immortality."

The same themes run throughout all the writings of the early Christians, from Europe to North Africa: we can't have both Christ and the world.

Lest we think that the early Christians were describing a lifestyle they didn't really practice, we have the testimony of the Romans themselves. One pagan antagonist of the Christians remarked:

They despise the temples as houses of the dead. They reject the gods. They laugh at sacred things. Wretched, they pity our priests. Half-naked themselves, they despise honors and purple robes. What incredible audacity and foolishness! They are not afraid of present torments, but they fear those that are uncertain and future. While they do not fear to die for the present, they fear to die after death....

At least learn from your present situation, you wretched people, what actually awaits you after death. See, many of you-in fact, by your own admission, the majority of you-are in want, are cold, are hungry, and are laboring in hard work. Yet, your god allows it. He is either unwilling or unable to assist his people. So he is either weak or unjust.... Take notice! For you there are threats, punishments, tortures, and crosses.... Where is the god who is supposed to help you when you come back from the dead? He cannot even help you in this life! Do not the Romans, without any help from your god, govern, rule over, and have the enjoyment of the whole world, including dominion over you yourselves?

In the meantime, living in suspense and anxiety, you abstain from respectable pleasures. You do not attend sporting events. You have no interest in public amusements. You reject the public banquets, and abhor the sacred games.... Thus, wretched as you are, you will neither rise from the dead, nor enjoy life in the meanwhile. So, if you have any wisdom or sense, stop prying into the heavens and the destinies and secrets of the world.... Persons who are unable to understand civil matters are certainly unable to discuss divine ones.

When I first read the criticisms that the Romans leveled against the Christians, I painfully realized that no one would accuse Christians today of those same charges. We aren't criticized for being totally absorbed in the interests of a heavenly kingdom, ignoring the things the world has to offer. In fact, Christians today are accused of just the opposite-of being money hungry and hypocritical in our devotion to God.

Econmics of a Snow Shovel

Tonchi Weaver had a great article published in the Rapid City Journal on Saturday.

She tells the story of three boys who came to her door in December, offering to shovel the snow from her driveway and sidewalk. Though she had a snowblower, the lads made an offer that made sense to her and saved her the work of clearing the snow herself.

When they were done, she offered to pay them for some additional tasks and they agreed. In the end, they earned three times what they had originally expected to when they knocked on her door.

When she paid them, she remarked to them how unusual it was to see boys their age (about 15) out working hard to earn some of their own money. One of them was glad and said that mean more work (and money) for them.

But then Tonchi started wondering what it might be like if she did business like many in the federal government want us to do things.

I wonder if those boys would have been as productive if I’d told them I would pay them the agreed-upon price, but after they had finished the job I would deduct 30 percent from their pay and give it to the other boys in the neighborhood who were not so industrious?

I could explain that it isn’t fair that these kids with the shovels should have all the money; surely those other kids sitting at home deserve to have money, too. If they complained about my confiscation of what they had earned, I could just call them “greedy” and tell them it is better to “spread the wealth around.”

Would these boys have cheered her fairness and compassion? Doubtful. Yet the socialists running our government expect us to do just that–turn over our hard-earned income to people who have not earned it and usually haven’t even done anything to deserve it.

The wisdom Tonchi points out from Jefferson has never been more applicable than today:

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

Can we really be considered a free people if our government forces us to labor for others, Tonchi asks?

Cavuto: This is About to Get Ugly

By Neil Cavuto, Managing Editor & Anchor on FOX Business Channel

Missed Monday's Cavuto? Catch "The Deal" right here on FOXBusiness.com

Forget an about-face.

Try a doubling down.

Welcome, everybody, I’m Neil Cavuto and here's the deal.

No deal.

No compromise.

No way.

If you thought this administration was going to take the same humble pie serving the Clinton administration did 16 years ago after it got its political ass kicked, think again.

Because despite Massachusetts, and Virginia, and New Jersey and all those tea parties and all those town hall meetings...

In this very biggest and grandest of presidential meetings ... No blinking, no shifting. No shift.

No course correction.

No correction, at all.

Word is that in his State of Union address in 48 hours, the president will outline how he plans to keep veering left these next 36 months.

His first term will be defined not by shifts in policy, but throttling down on that policy.

So, like a blackjack player risking it all, the president will make clear to all.

I knew Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was not exactly a dear friend of mine.

I'm no Bill Clinton.

So no "era of big government is over" nonsense.

The problem, as this president sees it, isn't his message, but how he delivered it.

So he'll re-focus on the delivery that might win back the Paul Krugmans and Frank Richs and Maureen Dowds ... But likely do little to win back the bulk of regular old Pauls and Franks and Maureens out there.

Get ready, this is about to get very nasty.

We're Number Eight and Falling Fast

A study you may have seen… I hadn’t.

When it comes to places with economic freedom, true capitalism. We USA types aren’t even close and we are dropping fast.

I guess the single argument against the capitalist system in the USA is that the socialists have eliminated it. It’s like arguing against unicorns.

They don’t exist but it’s good to be against them.

When the left goes REALLY SOUTH on Obama it's not pretty.....Even to me...

You have to read this whole essay. This guy who is a big time leftist, HATES all thing Obama. Obama might just as well dump Biden and Put GWB in as VEEP. He couldn't be hated more.

Excerpt:

Barack Obama has now, in just a year's time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in my lifetime. Never has so much political advantage been pissed away so rapidly, and what's more in the context of so much national urgency and crisis. It's astonishing, really, to contemplate how much has been lost in a single year.

...he doesn't really "charge" at anything. He just talks about things, thinks about things a real long time, defers to others on things, and waits around for things to maybe happen.

...I have never seen a president so utterly lacking in passion. This man literally doesn't even seem to care about himself, let alone this or that policy issue. He doesn't seem to have any strong opinions on anything, a sure prescription for presidential failure.

He has therefore let Congress ‘lead' on nearly every issue, another surefire mistake. Instead of demanding that they pass real stimulus legislation - which would have really stimulated the economy, big-time, and right now - he let those dickheads on the Hill just load up a big pork party blivet of a bill with all the pet projects they could find, designed purely to benefit their personal standing with the voters at home, rather than to actually produce jobs for Americans. And on health care, his signature issue, he did the same thing. "You guys write it, and I'll sign the check." Could there possibly be a greater prescription for failure than allowing a bunch of the most venal people on the planet to cobble together a 2,000 page monstrosity that entirely serves their interests and those of the people whose campaign bribes put them in office?

...if you're trying to run the most failed presidency ever, a really good idea is to campaign in the grandest terms possible, and then deliver squat. You know, talk about bending the arc of history. Invoke Martin Luther King's dream and his struggles and even those of the slaves. Ring the big bells of generational calling. Remind voters every thirty seconds that the country badly needs "Change!". Then get elected and turn around and continue the policies of your hated predecessor in every meaningful policy area. Only with less conviction. People will love that.

Killing Babies as a Cost Saving Effort of Nationalized Healthcare

Recently at Lord of Life Church a baby was born that the world gave up on and condemned to die. Yet she lives. In spite of the worlds sentence. This story reminded me of her.

WND

Isaiah James May was born a little after 5 p.m. on Oct. 24, 2009, and was scheduled to die this past week – on Wednesday, Jan. 20 – just short of his three-month birthday.

That was the day chosen by Canada's publicly funded, government health service as the deadline for Isaiah to recover from his traumatic birth or be taken off life-support.

"There is no hope of recovery for Isaiah," reads a letter from Alberta Health Services delivered to Isaiah's parents and dated one week before the health care system intended to pull the plug on the baby it has determined irreparably brain damaged.

"Your treating physicians regretfully have come to the conclusion that withdrawal of active treatment is medically reasonable, ethically responsible and appropriate," the letter states. "We must put the interests of your son foremost, and it is in his best interests to discontinue mechanical ventilation support."

Parents Isaac and Rebecka May, however, immediately appealed to the courts for more time, encouraged by signs that their boy was growing and moving, pointing to instance after instance where Isaiah had already proven the doctors wrong.

"He is doing everything they said that he would not do. Every day he does something new. So that helps us to fight," the baby's 23-year-old mother told CBC News. "His eyes dilate. He opens his eyes. He moves his limbs. He's growing. He's gaining weight. He's living. They told us he would never do any of that."

Then, the day before the hospital planned to allow Isaiah to die, a judge granted Isaiah a few more days of life.

Court of Queen's Bench Justice Michelle Crighton gave Isaiah's parents one week, until Jan. 27, to find an independent expert – to determine if or when the baby should be taken off life-support.

Isaiah was born after a difficult 40 hours of labor, but the umbilical cord had wrapped itself around the baby's neck and deprived the newborn of oxygen. Isaiah was immediately taken by air ambulance to Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton, where he has survived with the help of a ventilator and feedings through an IV tube.

But through his three months of care, his doctors believe Isaiah has suffered irreversible brain damage and have offered his young parents no hope for the boy's recovery.

After Isaac and Rebecka May received the letter informing them life-support would be terminated on their son, they turned to the courts, seeking a 90-day window for continued observation of the progress they believe their son is making in spite of the doctor's predictions.

According to court documents reported by the Calgary Herald, the baby's mother claims doctors said Isaiah wouldn't live past three days, wouldn't grow, wouldn't be able to urinate or move. May says the doctors told her brain death would cause Isaiah's head to shrink and his brain to turn to "mush."

Instead, she says, not only has Isaiah's head grown, but he has also gained more than three pounds, wets his diaper, moves his hands, feet and arms and opens his eyes every day, according to court documents.

"It's pretty cool seeing little changes every day," his 22-year-old father told the Herald. "Of course, it's not easy, being there watching him on the bed like that, but we're just doing everything we can right now to know we've done everything we can do."

The couple's attorney told Edmonton's CTV News, "The family has asked for 90 days in order to see how the child will develop, if the child will grow, if there's any improvement in the child's condition."

Brent Windwick, the lawyer representing Alberta Health Services and the Stollery Children's Hospital, has asked the court to allow no more than 30 days before making its decision.

Alberta Health Services, in turn, released a statement: "The medical and ethical discussions for this family and care providers are the most difficult imaginable. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to the family. Our medical, nursing and allied health teams have and will continue to support this family in every way possible. It is appropriate to turn now to the courts for direction."

The court, however, granted the family only seven days to find an independent expert to evaluate their son and determine a future course of action.

Reported friends of the family have established a Facebook page for prayers and support for the May family. The page includes photos and videos of Isaiah, telephone numbers for complaints registered to Alberta Health Services, a mailing address for the Mays, who are currently staying at an Edmonton Ronald McDonald House, and links for financial donations through PayPal.

The Way Church is Done in the USA

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread to have a worship service, that is, for singing and preaching, Paul talked with preached to them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech sermon until midnight. (Acts 20:7 re-mix)

From Alan Knox

Why it's so hard for women to find a good man

They're out there... but.