Global Warming Research is Useless
From the horses mouth, Kevin Trenberth, head of the large US National Centre for Atmospheric Research and a lead author for the IPCC has made comments on Nature magazines blog about the computer models (General Circulation Models or GCM's) used in scaring people about global warming. Some of his comments

...there are no (climate) predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been". Instead, there are only "what if" projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios.

[GCM's] do not consider many things like the recovery of the ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents"

None of the models used by IPCC is initialised to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models corresponds even remotely to the current observed climate

The state of the oceans, sea ice and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models

There is neither an El Nino sequence nor any Pacific Decadal Oscillation that replicates the recent past; yet these are critical modes of variability that affect Pacific rim countries and beyond . . . the starting climate state in several of the models may depart significantly from the real climate owing to model errors" and "regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialised

[GCMs] assume linearity [which] works for global forced variations, but it cannot work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle . . . the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate".

More useful info from the article

a lead author of the IPCC Working Group 1 science report, Jim Renwick, recently admitted "climate prediction is hard, half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well".

Professor Bob Carter sums it up well

there is no predictive value in the current generation of computer GCMs and therefore the alarmist IPCC statements about human-caused global warming are unjustified. Yet Australia has an Opposition and a Government that profess to set their climate policies on the basis of IPCC advice. Both also seem determined to impose an inefficient, ineffective and costly carbon trading or taxation system on the economy, for the aspirational absurdity of "stopping climate change".

The science isn't settled, it isn't even useful. Computer models are useless for large complex systems as the IPCC lead author has admitted.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Friday, October 26, 2007 0 comments

 
The Media is not objective
I'm both saddened and angered daily by the main stream media's (MSM) constant efforts to influence public opinion whilst pretending to be 'objective'. Nothing shows the massive bias towards the left of the MSM like their treatment of Fidel Castro and Cuba.

Exactly a half century ago both The New York Times and CBS--between hailing him as a 'humanist" "a Christian" a "Robin Hood" and an "anti-communist"--reported that the Cuban rebel chieftain Fidel Castro commanded "hundreds" of guerrillas in a "war" against Cuban dictator Batista. On clandestine trips to the war zone in Cuba's Sierra Maestra mountains reporters for the two most prestigious media outlets in America had seen these hundreds of rebels first hand.

Two years later Castro himself cackled while recounting how he'd ordered his eighteen "rebels" to march in front of the gaping U.S. reporters then scurry into the bushes, change uniforms and march through again. The U.S. embassy's public affairs officer in Havana, Richard Cushing had performed the role of tour guide for these valiant and intrepid reporters, as well as for their media colleagues who soon formed a veritable parade..

By 1958 reporters for every magazine from Look to Boys Life had braved the furtive journey to Castro's campsite. Ever hospitable to the U.S. media, Castro had his people erect a sign saying "Press Hut" to more easily direct the traffic flow of this camera and notebook-toting (and ever-friendly) throng, with their amazing immunity to harm from the Fascist hordes of Batista's diabolical army and police.

During this time the wire dispatches from New York on the Cuban rebellion, including those from the Associated Press, were being concocted and written word for word by a Castro's own agent in New York, Mario Llerena, who admits as much in his book, The Unsuspected Revolution. Llerena was also the contact with Castro's most famous publicity agent, the New York Times', Herbert Matthews. National Review's famous 1960 cartoon showing a beaming Castro, "I got my job through the New York Times!" nailed it.

In the words of (leftist) British historian Hugh Thomas: "In all essentials Castro's battle for Cuba was a public relations campaign, fought in New York and Washington." "Fought" and also won, I might add.

In 1979 David Halberstam's book, The Powers That Be was all the rage in Beltway circles. The book claimed that the major media had "stopped following the news and was now making the news...an account of the rise of the modern media as an instrument of political power," reads the jacket. The major media, claimed Halberstam, had supplanted both the Executive and legislative branches of the U.S. Government as a power broker, and he listed the main players in that brokering. Reportedly, this became one of Fidel Castro's favorite books. Not that he probably learned anything from it. Simply that he received smug confirmation of something he'd proven decades earlier.

Yep. The MSM put a communist dictator into power by their fawning naivety for all things leftist.

The MSM continues to promote Casto's propaganda today...

Along with the above, the intervening half-century witnessed many events that might have prompted the U.S. media (and their readers) to question the Castro regime's press releases. Alas, such is the case in too few quarters. Castro's propaganda ministry retains an influence (more of a spell, actually) over worldwide media and academic circles that simply will not abate and that has proven impervious to refutation, however thorough, consistent and authoritatively documented.

But Michael Moore's parroting of Castro's claims in Sicko gagged even some in the U.S. mainstream media. An ABC producer, amazed by pictures smuggled out of Cuban hospitals and posted on the website The Real Cuba, decided to counter Sicko by using ABC's Havana Bureau to interview Cuban dissidents. These would reveal the actual conditions in Cuba's hospitals.

ABC's Havana Bureau shuffled nervously and finally said OK--but first they'd have to ask the Stalinist regime's permission for such an interview. Think about that for a second. Then remind yourself that these people are probably clinically sane. Then ask yourself what's in Cuban water.

ABC's Havana Bureau (like any news agency's Havana Bureau ) proved utterly useless in reporting anything unsanctioned by a Stalinist regime's propaganda ministry--and dared not raise a peep of public protest over this totalitarian censorship. This is the very same ABC, by the way, that on its World News Tonight bemoaned the Dixie Chicks canceled concerts (in completely private-sector venues) as a form of "censorship."

Thwarted by their own Havana Bureau, some ABC producers resolved to get their hands on any evidence regarding conditions in Cuba's hospitals, feature them on 20/20, and blow the case wide open. For this they contacted George Utset who runs The Real Cuba website whose pictures had originally impressed them. George now turned to contacts inside Cuba. The evidence was to come from the very belly of the beast, in the form of smuggled videos.

Michael Moore's reputation inside Cuba helped the clandestine project..Two years ago Fidel Castro hailed Michael Moore as "that outstanding American!" For weeks Fahrenheit 9-11 was featured on Cuba's state TV.

All this instantly made its director suspect among Castro's subjects. Sicko confirmed the worst. This American millionaire, by spreading a Stalinist regime's lies, struck many Cubans as a simple accomplice to their oppression-- one of many. The friend of my oppressor is also my oppressor, they reasoned. The Castroite propaganda in Sicko so outraged some Cubans that, now knowing the truth could reach millions of Americans via ABC's 20/20, they risked their lives by using hidden cameras to film conditions in Cuban hospitals--but only those hospitals that were genuinely Cuban, meaning that they served Cubans.

The ones showcased by Michael Moore exclusively serve rich foreigners and high Communist party officials. Watching Moore reading from Castro's cue cards by claiming these hospitals served average Cubans, knowing this propaganda would be spread worldwide (and swallowed by many), was more than these desperate Cubans could stomach.

At enormous risk, two hours of shocking--often revolting--footage was obtained with tiny hidden cameras and smuggled out of Cuba. The man who assumed most of this risk was Cuban dissident--a medical doctor himself-- Dr Darsi Ferrer, who was also willing to talk on camera, narrating much of the video's revelations. Dr Ferrer works in these genuinely Cuban hospitals daily, witnessing the truth. More importantly, he wasn't cowed from revealing this truth to America and the world.

Alas, with the videos finally n their hands ABC started getting cold feet. The 20/20 segment kept getting smaller and smaller. That on-again, off-again funeral extravaganza widely expected in Havana has raised the perceived importance of Havana press bureaus, and ABC's Havana staff had already whimpered objections to this project. They were unaware of the smuggled videos but many of their colleagues stateside apparently "felt their pain." More cutting and more paring ensued. On Sept. 12th 20/20 ended up running a short segment on the matter, barely 5 minutes long and with almost none of the smuggled video footage.

Even so, viewer response was thunderous. 20/20 was deluged with atta-boy! e-mails. The Cuban regime responded also. The Cuban Communist party's Central Committee called a meeting to discuss the issue then called in ABC's Havana bureau for talking-to. John Stossel's follow-up shows on Sicko included no mention of Cuba's healthcare.

So it isn't just leftist bias anymore (although there is plenty of that), it is cowardice as well. The MSM like to pretend they are brave when they attack conservative causes at "great risk" to themselves, but it is clear they don't believe their own lies, because when a real risk turns up, they run for the hills.

Perhaps this is why the military is filled with a higher proportion of conservatives. They are the ones who are much more likely to have courage.

Thankfully, Fox News has some people with a backbone.

Enter Fox News, and the Hannity & Colmes Show in particular. Fox producers got word of these smuggled videos and immediately requested a look. They promptly got to work editing, translating and subtitling. On Oct 10th they ran huge segments of the smuggled videos. Fox viewers saw naked patients covered with flies while laying on "hospital beds" consisting of a bare mattress. They saw building that would be condemned by the health board of any U.S. municipality serving as "hospitals." They saw and heard Dr Darsi Ferrer along with other Cubans who described their inability to obtain something so basic as aspirins.

"Greed," was the motif of Michael Moore's Sicko, right?

Well, Fox viewers saw footage of Cubans being told that aspirins and other medicines just might be available to them--but only if they paid in U.S. dollars, not the Cuban pesos they held out in desperation.

I have had well meaning, but uninformed friends tell me that we should abolish private health care because then politicians will be forced to fix public health care as 'No politician will wait 8 months to get surgery'. The cold hard truth is that the politicians will never wait 8 months to get health care, whether there is private health care or not. Castro shows this fact quite well....I'm willing to bet you will find the same in any country that only has public health care. Those in power get 'special treatment'.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, October 25, 2007 0 comments

 
The New Republic's RatherGate
The New Republic (TNR) has been investigating how Scott Beauchamp managed to get a story about how brutal and mean the US army was in Iraq so wrong. Whilst no information has been released, Drudge has a few leaks.

SHOCK DOCS: THE NEW REPUBLIC 'SHOCK TROOPS' STORY COLLAPSES
WED Oct 24 2007 12:29:44 ET

The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained internal documents from the investigation of THE NEW REPUBLIC'S "Baghdad Diarist", Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an Army private turned war correspondent who reported tales of military malfeasance from the Iraq War front.

The documents appear to expose that once the veracity of Beauchamp's diaries were called into question, and an Army investigation ensued, THE NEW REPUBLIC has failed to publicly account for publishing slanderous falsehoods about the U.S. military in a time of war.

Document 1: Beauchamp Refuses to Stand by Story (Beauchamp Transcript Part 1)

THE NEW REPUBLIC has been standing behind the stories from their Baghdad Diarist, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, since questions were first raised about their accuracy over the summer. On August 10, the editors at TNR accused the Army of "stonewalling" their investigation into the stories by preventing them from speaking with Beauchamp. The DRUDGE REPORT has since obtained the transcript of a September 7 call between TNR editor Frank Foer, TNR executive editor Peter Scoblic, and Private Beauchamp. During the call, Beauchamp declines to stand by his stories, telling his editors that "I just want it to end. I'm not going to talk to anyone about anything really." The editors respond that "we just can't, in good conscience, continue to defend the piece" without an explanation, but Beauchamp responds only that he "doesn't care what the public thinks." The editors then ask Beauchamp to cancel scheduled interviews with the WASHINGTON POST and NEWSWEEK.

Document 2: Beauchamp Admits to "Gross Exaggerations and Inaccurate Allegations" (Beauchamp Transcript Part 2)

The DRUDGE REPORT has also obtained a signed "Memorandum for Record" in which Beauchamp recants his stories and concedes the facts of the Army's investigation -- that his stories contained "gross exaggerations and inaccurate allegations of misconduct" by his fellow soldiers.

Document 3: Army Investigation: Tales "Completely Fabricated," Beauchamp Wanted to be Hemingway

The third document obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT is the Army's official report on the investigation into the allegations made by Private Beauchamp. The Army concluded that Beauchamp had "completely fabricated" the story of mocking a disfigured woman, that his description of a "Saddam-era dumping ground" was false, and that claims that he and his men had deliberately targeted dogs with their armored vehicles was "completely unfounded." Further the report stated "that Private Beauchamp desired to use his experiences to enhance his writing and provide legitimacy to his work possibly becoming the next Hemingway."

The report concludes that "Private Beauchamp takes small bits of truth and twists and exaggerates them into fictional accounts that he puts forth as the whole truth for public consumption."

Developing...

Obviously Private Beauchamp didn't read the playbook properly....if only had claimed there was a consensus and all debate was over, he would have gotten away with it.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, October 25, 2007 0 comments

 
Must Read - Inconvenient Lies
Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth has won him an oscar for Best Documentary and a part share of a Nobel Piece Prize. (Which is a growing trend after the mostly fictional Michael Moore 'documentaries' also won awards)

Yet the real inconvenient truth is that the documentary is wrong on almost every point of fact. Chris Monckton has an article outlining the near constant errors in the documentary. With so many errors, I'm surprised Al Gore managed to get his own name right.

The documentary creators have said that it was made to be intentionally one sided so that no ambiguity could be seized upon by governments to avoid action. Some people may call that 'giving the truth scope', I call it intentionally lying to the people in order to achieve your own ideological ends.

No wonder Al Gore is too scared to debate anyone on the topic.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Tuesday, October 23, 2007 0 comments

 
Must Watch - Climate Change and CO2
Bob Carter, a research professor in the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, Australia has a fantastic presentation on the massive problems with the man-made global warming scare campaign. This was recently presented at a public forum in Australia.

Watch the whole thing.....

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Note that Tim Flannery didn't turn up to the forum. Much like Al Gore, he much prefers to spread the propaganda than have a scientific debate.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Tuesday, October 23, 2007 0 comments

 
Al Gore - The Face of Global Warming
Al Gore, the man everyone, including the Nobel Prize Committee, thinks of as the face of the global warming propaganda campaign, is a veritable science dunce.

For all of Gore's later fascination with science and technology, he often struggled academically in those subjects. The political champion of the natural world received that sophomore D in Natural Sciences 6 (Man's Place in Nature) and then got a C-plus in Natural Sciences 118 his senior year. The self-proclaimed inventor of the Internet avoided all courses in mathematics and logic throughout college,

Although apparently having an IQ of 133, he was lazy and did badly, avoided logic and math, and spent too much time playing pool and smoking dope.

Just your average hippie really....not the sort of person who should inspire confidence in their pronouncements...
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, October 18, 2007 0 comments

 
Moveon Democrats
I wonder how many of the Democrats who refused to condemn Moveon.org's despicable newspaper ad attacking General Petreaus, jumped on board to condemn Rush Limbaugh after several people dishonestly twisted Rush's condemnation of 'Phony Soldiers'.

Truly these people have no shame.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, October 04, 2007 0 comments

 
Cowardly Liberals Strike Again
Verum Serum has details of a recent Cold Case episode which attacks Christianity and abstinence.

In the September 30 episode of the CBS forensics show, the devoutly religious teens in an abstinence club turn out to be sexually active hypocrites who murder one of their own members – by stoning her, as the Bible teaches – to keep their sins secret. Their youth pastor encourages one girl to describe her impure dreams to him, and masturbates while listening.

Of course, the cowardly liberals would never dream of attacking Muslim's in this way, as that would be 'intolerant' and open them up to being killed.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, October 04, 2007 0 comments

 
Mandela
There is a common psychological feature where people will uncritically believe anything that agrees with their preconceptions.

Trying to correct their mistakes often shows just much they want the falsehood to be true, as opposed to rationally weighing the evidence.

If there is one thing that President Bush is good at, it is showing just how irrational many of his critics are....

The latest is the wildly incorrect claim that Bush thought that Saddam Hussein killed Nelson Mandela. Tim Blair has a few examples. As Tim Blair has noted, the crowd who claims they are nuanced, seem woefully unable to get it.

What most people don't know, is how Saddam Hussein killed Mandela. After extensive research, I have uncovered that he did it by force feeding him a US Government supplied plastic turkey.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, October 04, 2007 0 comments