Joust The Facts

"And Nothing Will Come Between You And Your Doctor"

Barack Obama, speech to joint session of Congress, Sept. 9, 2009:

"I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need."

Senator (and physician) Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, in today's WSJ:

Additionally, the Reid bill depends on the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in no fewer than 14 places. This task force was responsible for advising women under 50 to not undergo annual mammograms. The administration claims the task force recommendations do not carry the force of law, but the Reid bill itself contradicts them in section 2713. The bill explicitly states, on page 17, that health insurance plans "shall provide coverage for" services approved by the task force. This chilling provision represents the government stepping between doctors and patients. When the government asserts the power to provide care, it also asserts the power to deny care.

When the government fails to pay for unapproved services (note: unapproved, not unnecessary) it of course restricts them.  This is the government standing between you and your physician.  Mr. Obama's statement that "no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need" has a different meaning to him than it does to the rest of us.  He clearly means the statement to apply to approved services only.  And in order to determine those approved services it places itself as supervisor ... final arbiter, really ... of  the patient care decisions of a million physicians and their 300 million patients.

The JTF "Quotes Of The Day"

From a Times Daily Mail (UK) Online (MSM) news story - yes, there is at least one - having a look at "hiding the decline":

'Any scientist ought to know that you just can’t mix and match proxy and actual data,’ said Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

‘They’re apples and oranges. Yet that’s exactly what he did.’

And throw pears into the mix - much of the actual data were "adjusted," like this.  And a response to it all from Doctor Zero, one I wish I'd had time to write.

Dear global warming fanatics,

Please. Stop. You’re embarrassing yourselves. Take a deep breath, and try to understand what has happened to you during the past month. You need to accept that your dreams of global domination are over. Increasingly shrill attempts to terrify the masses into ignoring Climagate are only making you look foolish. The con job you’ve been running for the last thirty years is busted forever.

The JTF "Quote Of The Day"

Willis Eschenbach at Watt's Up With That? (hat tip: krakatoa at Ace)

"Those, dear friends, are the clumsy fingerprints of someone messing with the data Egyptian style … they are indisputable evidence that the “homogenized” data has been changed to fit someone’s preconceptions about whether the earth is warming.

One thing is clear from this. People who say that “Climategate was only about scientists behaving badly, but the data is OK” are wrong. At least one part of the data is bad, too. The Smoking Gun for that statement is at Darwin Zero."

They blinded me with science.  Oh, and, by the way, the "scientific concensus" may not be, at least among scientists.

The professional association for physicists is facing internal pressure from some of its most distinguished members, who say the burgeoning ClimateGate scandal means the group should rescind its 2007 statement declaring that global warming represents a dire international emergency.

What Copenhagen Is All About

A photo from Reuters:

This isn't about climate change, anthropogenic global warming, impending ecological disaster or any other of the excuses usually cited. No, this is about world socialism, the governmentally-enforced mandatory transfer of large amounts of money from fully developed nations to underdeveloped nations.

And to get there, if the earth doesn't cooperate, requires this.

And this.

And especially this.

And of course Al Gore and the other profiteers want their cut.

The Cowardly Climate Lion

Plans can change quickly when they need to, I guess.

Former Vice President Al Gore on Thursday abruptly canceled a Dec. 16 personal appearance that was to be staged during the United Nations' Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which begins next week.

As described in The Washington Times' Inside the Beltway column Tuesday, the multimedia public event to promote Mr. Gore's new book, "Our Choice," included $1,209 VIP tickets that granted the holder a photo opportunity with Mr. Gore and a "light snack."

Berlingkse Media, a Danish group coordinating ticket sales and publicity for the event, said that "great annoyance" was a factor in the cancellation, along with unforeseen changes in Mr. Gore's program for the climate summit. The decision affected 3,000 ticket holders.

"We have had a clear-cut agreement, and it is unusual with great disappointment that we have to announce that Al Gore cancels. We had a huge expectation for the event. . . . We do not yet know the detailed reasons for the cancellation," said Lisbeth Knudsen, CEO of Berlingske Media, in a statement posted by the company

First, isn't anyone else offended that this guy is charging $1200 a head just to be in his magnificent presence?  "Have a light snack with The Climate Prophet himself, for only the cost of a real nice LCD TV."  And Sarah Palin gets grief for actually taking a few plane flights in the course of her bus tour for Going Rogue.

Second, just like the CRU team at East Anglia, Mr. Gore has never been one willing to actually debate knowledgeable  critics.  The CRU team poisoned the peer-review process, refused FOIA requests from non-believers, and at a minimum discussed deleting information and communications.  He avoided a debate with Lord Christopher Monckton like the plague last spring, with protective Democrats vetoing Lord Monckton's appearance before Congress while his plane was en route.

Finally, I don't think Mr. Gore will be alone in "modifying" his Copenhagen schedule.  There will be a boatload of "schedule changes" by those unwilling to answer some serious questions about data, methods, and the honesty of the researchers primarily responsible for scaring as much of the planet as they can.

They Can't Handle The Truth

So, allegedly lacking space, they threw it all away.

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

They dumped it to save space?  Perhaps.  But I'll bet most of us can think of other less charitable reasons the data might have been dumped.  Yesterday they claimed they'd release the data in full.  They didn't really mean that, though.

Because all we now have is the "adjusted data," with no record of either the raw data or the actual adjustments (and the logic behind them), scientists wishing to double and triple check the work of known liars and system manipulators would need to start with the "adjusted" data to begin their work, which is akin to taking over a train that has already been headed down a particular track to its destination.  But the group at CRU would like everyone to take their word on the adjusted data, and move along.  Right.

Other AGW climate change proponents, like MP George Monbiot, would have us believe that a couple of corrupt scientists should be dumped unceremoniously, but that the train should be allowed to continue because the evidence is still solid.

But do these revelations justify the sceptics’ claims that this is “the final nail in the coffin” of global warming theory?(8,9) Not at all. They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence. To bury manmade climate change, a far wider conspiracy would have to be revealed.

A wider conspiracy ... like, for example, destroying the source data?  We are left, at this point, with starting over from scratch.  The methods, the data, and the ideologically driven actions of the "scientists" at the East Anglia University CRU, and of those like Dr. Mann who were intimately involved in the ruses, are all so questionable that to soldier on as if nothing has changed shows only the religious fervor with which the proponents hold their beliefs.  If the data has been destroyed, then you'll need new data, the raw form of which would need to be released as soon as it has been obtained, prior to any analysis or manipulation, for open source analysis.  Otherwise the "truth" about AGW will continue to be solely a political argument over world governance and the tax burden and oppressiveness of government on people simply trying to live.

11/29/09 1235: More, from Christopher Booker in the Times of London: "the worst scientific scandal of our generation."

What is tragically evident from the Harry Read Me file is the picture it gives of the CRU scientists hopelessly at sea with the complex computer programmes they had devised to contort their data in the approved direction, more than once expressing their own desperation at how difficult it was to get the desired results.

Ah, The Cranberry

Personally I prefer the jellied version of Ocean Spray's masterpiece; others prefer the "chunky" style (it's a texture thing with me).  Here are the instructions for producing the perfect "jelly log."  The key move is not the flat knife around the perimeter of the burgundy gelatin, but the "shake" at a slight angle, not straight down.  This creates shear along the base of the can, freeing it from the overlying delicacy.

(photo shamelessly borrowed not for commercial purpose from said Ocean Spray website)

Here are a couple of my favorite cranberry spokesmen:

Happy Thanksgiving, and enjoy the jelly

Note To MSM: This Is News

The hacked emails and documents from East Anglia University's Climate Research Unit (CRU) are a significant story, although some elements of the media still are running around with their fingers in their ears.  Doug Ross catches the Boston Globe, and finds the readers informing the editors.  Pwnd!  Click over to DR to enjoy the comments.  P.J. Gladnick found a similar situation in comments to another dire global warming story in the Houston Chronicle, and does a sweet impression of the HAL 9000 from 2001.  From the latter:

University of East Anglia? Hmmm... Where have I heard about this university in the recent past? Something about hacked e-mails, manipulated data, and a coverup? This editorial won't bring up the scandal that dare not speak its name but the readers are not shy about bringing it up over and over and over again:

 Oh dear .. I think you have a bit of catching up to do.

Scandal? What scandal? We're as willfully clueless about this as Charlie Gibson is about the ACORN scandal.

Apparently, the clowns on the Houston Comical editorial board do zero research prior to sitting down at the keyboard to compose their lies. The "researchers" at East Anglia have been exposed as the perpetrators of a massive fraud by manipulating statistics. Yet, here comes the Comical citing the liars at East Anglia in support of their thesis. It's all over the news - even the Houston Comical. (Maybe the editorial board doesn't read the Comical - only the press releases of the DNC.)

[...]

Bottom line here for the MSM; you can try to avoid mentioning Climategate in your global warming stories but your readers are sure to remind you of your deliberate oversight. Oh how they will remind you!

Robert Tracinski has a piece discussing the "Climategate" scandal over at Real Clear Politics.  In particular, he finds strong evidence of manipulation of the scientific climate journals' peer review process to ostracize those who don't toe the line.

But what stood out most for me was extensive evidence of the hijacking of the "peer review" process to enforce global warming dogma. Peer review is the practice of subjecting scientific papers to review by other scientists with relevant expertise before they can be published in professional journals. The idea is to weed out research with obvious flaws or weak arguments, but there is a clear danger that such a process will simply reinforce groupthink. If it is corrupted, peer review can be a mechanism for an entrenched establishment to exclude legitimate challenges by simply refusing to give critics a hearing.

And that is precisely what we find.

[...]

Another CRU scientist, Tom Wigley, suggests that they target another troublesome editor: "If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted." That's exactly what they did, and a later e-mail boasts that "The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/new editorial leadership there."

This is a story - like the ACORN videos, like the forged Bush TANG letters - that the MSM ignores at their own peril.  Eventually a story will have to be written documenting, discussing and analyzing the actions of those "scientists" who rigged the game. 

They might as well start researching and writing them now.  To wait any longer simply confirms the suspicions of those who are no longer buying their papers, and worse, the suspicions of those who will stop buying in the future.

SEALs Win Battles

Or they would if we'd let them.

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

I thought initially that this must be a joke, that no sane government would punish the rough men (and women) who protect America for being the rough men (and women) who protect America.  This must be a situation where they are in trouble for not being aggressive enough.  But no, or rather, sadly no.

The Obama administration seems to specialize in wishful thinking.  For example, in health care reform, in economic policy, in Afghanistan, in terrorism.  They seem to believe that they can select an ideologically driven policy, and select a desired outcome, and simply assert that the latter will derive directly from the former, logic be damned.  For example, watch Sen. Lindsay Graham walk AG Eric Holder through his illogic in defending the federal terrorism trials scheduled for New York. 

It is rather pathetic that the Attorney General of the United States found it so difficult to understand such a simple concept. In the case of the SEALs they'd like to "fight" a war without any risk, any deaths, any attacks, or any one on either side getting a "bloody nose."  What's more, the administration seem particularly disturbed when it's the enemy that gets it.  Mr. Obama's justice department needs to understand that Al Qaeda, terrorists, the Taliban are a wartime enemy, and a non-Geneva Convention one at that given their deliberate targeting of citizens, avoidance of uniforms and hiding within the civilian population.  It's sad that they don't.  Handcuffing our soldiers publicly does nothing to discourage the enemy's will, instead reinforcing in the enemy the belief that we don't have the will.  We need a president who is a soldier, or who understands soldiers.  Instead we have one who understands manipulation of the law, and favor-trading and deal-making, and who seems to have insufficient animosity for the enemies of the nation.

Any Comment From Mr. Gore?

Because when a story like this breaks, on the cusp of the Copenhagen climate meeting in particular, a truly unbiased and curious media would surely track down the Prophet himself to ask a pertinent question or two.

If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Well you can't exactly say you haven't been warned.  An example:

So what was in the emails?  I can reprint them here, but you might as well read some pertinent snippets at the source, or via Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.

The questions at this point really are few, and they don't really have to do with AGW itself.

1. Do you still consider yourself a scientist after such efforts to falsify data, mislead, and cover up "inconvenient truths" in violation of principles of scientific discovery?
2. Should anyone involved in the manipulations and coverups have any scientific credibility left?
3. Should Al Gore have to return his Nobel Prize?
4. Should John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman and Edward Markey have to hold a press conference to explain their actions?

Summing up, let me once again quote Dr. Lindzen of MIT:

“Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly exaggerated computer predictions combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a rollback of the industrial age."

11/21/09 0015: To clarify, there's nothing particularly wrong with alternative energy sources, like wind, sun, nuclear, etc.  But the government shouldn't be setting up a huge enterprise to take their cut of energy proceeds in such an obvious money grab as "cap and trade" or carbon taxes.  And please don't tell me that subsidizing more expensive technologies and raising everyone's energy costs are necessary to "save the planet."  The planet doesn't need saving; science does.

What Is Wrong With Congress?

It's actually kind of a rhetorical question.  I think everyone really knows the main thing wrong, and this is a prime example.

What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform?

Here’s a case study.

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.” 

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.” 

I am told the section applies to exactly one state:  Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world:  Louisiana.  (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much does it cost?  According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

That's from Jonathan Karl at ABC's 'The Note.'  I'm, sorry to quote it so extensively, but it's necessary I believe.  This is the Senate Majority Leader trying to buy the vote of another Senator with $100M of your (and my) tax dollars.  Oh, sure, we're supposed to feel that this is a selfless act, because it goes to the people of her state and not directly into her pocket.  But the money will be distributed to politcally favored groups, who will no doubt recycle some of it in campaign contributions and support to her re-election efforts, and so it goes.  An endless cycle of legal bribery.

This health care bill will remake one fifth of the US economy.  If it's not worth voting for without this clause, it shouldn't be worth voting for with it, $100M of "walking around money" or not.  The "this is what you have to do to pass legislation argument" doesn't wash.  Either it's a great bill, and it should pass on it's own merits, or it's a lousy bill that doesn't deserve support.  And that's the case regardless of how much of our money Mr. Reid wants to throw to the wavering Senators.

Obama's Winning War Of Attrition

Question: Which war is Barack Obama winning?

Answer: A war of attrition on public opinion re: the war in Afghanistan.

ABC News reports that support for the war is at a new low in polling, 44%.  As support for this "war of necessity" drops, this war that so many Democrats - including the President - supported so vociferously just a few short years ago (right up to November 4, 2008), it becomes easier for Mr. Obama to lose his heart, his nerve, his determination to fight the "good" war.  He seems to be waiting for such a "popular" option.  A cynic, and I may be among them, might opine that Mr. Obama and the other Democrats who were vocal proponents of fighting in Afghanistan were simply using it as a bludgeon to bash Mr. Bush over the head for Iraq.  Either way, words mean something, and the unwillingness to stand by one's words also means something.  And in this case it's not something good.

The President needs to do one of two things.  He either needs to step up efforts to win in Afghanistan as Mr. Bush did in Iraq and as Mr. Obama said he would in March, per General McChrystal's recommendations.  Or he needs to explain exactly why winning in Afghanistan is no longer vital as he said so often during his campaign and in March.  But sitting on the sidelines waiting for public opinion to drop enough that a loss of will could be politically survived is not acceptable.  And although public opinion might eventually sink to a point that fighting on in Afghanistan is seen as untenable, the people will still hold him responsible for losing a battle that he clearly said must be won.

Three Aces

Here are three links to posts at Ace of Spades that must be read, and they can each be summed up by the three word summary in the first of the posts.

So he lied.

About what?  How about a threesome of personal actions, taxes, and health care.  That's good for a start.

Equals Don't Bow

Mr. Obama has it wrong.  A deep bow to Japanese Emperor Akihito shows not respect for the Japanese tradition - as that tradition applies to those ruled by the Emperor, the Japanese citizens themselves.  It shows deference and subservience, an overt desire to ingratiate himself with his hosts.

There is a reason Presidents don't bow to foreign leaders, and Mr. Obama doesn't understand it.  Perhaps it's because he was raised and educated in Indonesia - which really shouldn't matter at this point, but I'm searching for explanations here.  Presidents don't bow to other foreign leaders because an American president is the equal of the leaders he is meeting, at a minimum. Former President Clinton was taken to task by the NY Times for nearly bowing once.  Ah, but that was before  GWB, when America accumulated  so much for which to apologize.   Scott Johnson at Powerline has more:

Obama's breach of protocol is of a piece with the substance of his foreign policy. He means to teach Americans to bow before monarchs and tyrants. He embodies the ideological multiculturalism that sets the United States on the same plane as other regimes based on tribal privilege and royal bloodlines. He gives expressive form to the idea that the United States now willingly prostrates itself before the rest of the world. He declares that the United States is a country like any other, only worse, because we have so much for which to apologize.

This lack of understanding of his position in the world is problematic.  So is his clear belief in an inherently flawed America, flawed, at least, until his magnificent ascension.  I can guarantee you that you won't catch another world leader bowing to Mr. Obama in similar fashion.  Submissiveness does not equal respect, and it doesn't earn it either.

This is Hot Air's Obamateurism of the Day, and Donald Douglas rounds up a host of other links.

A Biennial Pilgrimage

This weekend is occupied.  Every other year I travel with a few friends to a mecca, not the Mecca.  Green Bay, Wisconsin, home of the Packers.  Lambeau Field.  The legendary Vince Lombardi.  This year's game features the visiting Dallas Cowboys (y'all can boo now).

The Packers became "my" team, even though I grew up in Connecticut, in the mid-sixties.  I was becoming interested in football at 6 or 7 years old, and the Green Bay was the in the middle of the Lombardi championship years.  Bart Starr, Willie Davis, Ray Nitschke, Jim Taylor, and all the other Packer greats were the players I followed.  Bart Starr's biography was one of the first real books I read.  Yesterday we visited Fuzzy's 63 just a short distance from Lambeau Field, and Fuzzy Thurston himself was there, greeting guests and signing autographs.

That said, this year has been disappointing, particularly in watching how the clearly-not-washed-up Brett Favre has lead the Vikings so ably, including two wins over Green Bay.  And last week's loss to Tampa Bay was even more of a sour note.  I'd like to see a little redemption today, and frankly they need a little redemption.

As a result, I haven't been in tune with events, or doing really any blogging.  I do have a little time this morning, so scroll down and see what's up.

And Go, Pack, Go!!