Obama 'tool' EPA to be challenged at SCOTUS over climate change.

Obama 'tool' EPA to be challenged at SCOTUS over climate change.(Reuters).By Lawrence Hurley.

WASHINGTON – In a blow to the Obama administration, the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a challenge to part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s first wave of regulations aimed at tackling climate change.

By agreeing to hear a single question of the many presented by nine different petitioners, the court set up its biggest environmental dispute since 2007.

That question is whether the EPA correctly determined that its decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles necessarily required it also to regulate emissions from stationary sources.

The EPA regulations are among President Barack Obama’s most significant measures to address climate change. The U.S. Senate in 2010 scuttled his effort to pass a federal law that would, among other things, have set a cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

By agreeing to hear a consolidated challenge from states and business groups, the court could be getting set to limit the reach of its groundbreaking 2007 ruling, Massachusetts v. EPA, in which it held on a 5-4 vote that carbon was a pollutant that could potentially be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The court rejected outright three of the nine petitions that sought Supreme Court review, including one filed by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican, that questioned whether the EPA appropriately weighed climate change science.

The legal question, crafted by the court itself from those raised in the six petitions it agreed to review, indicates the court does not plan to revisit the underlying reasoning behind Massachusetts v. EPA but will weigh whether the EPA went further than allowed under the act.

The American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying group that along with manufacturing interests filed one of the petitions, said the fact that EPA regulations for cars automatically triggered further regulation of other sources of greenhouse gas emissions was an "overstep" of the agency's authority under the Clean Air Act.

"The EPA is seeking to regulate U.S. manufacturing in a way that Congress never planned and never intended," said Harry Ng, American Petroleum Institute vice president and general counsel.

Whatever the court eventually decides, the EPA's ability to use the Clean Air Act to regulate emissions from power plants and other stationary sources is not under threat, environmental lawyers say.

Even if the court ruled for petitioners, most power plants and refineries would still be required to install best available control technology to limit greenhouse gases, said Sean Donahue, a lawyer representing environmental groups at Donahue and Goldberg.Read the full story here.

Video - Dealing in Hot Air - Trading in carbon credits is becoming the new playground for organized crime, INTERPOL warns.

Video - Dealing in Hot Air - Trading in carbon credits is becoming the new playground for organized crime, INTERPOL warns.HT: SunNews.

INTERPOL says fraudsters are drawn to the schemes because "carbon credits do not represent a physical commodity but instead have been described as a legal fiction that is poorly understood by many sellers, buyers and traders."

In a new guide for law enforcement agencies, INTERPOL says criminals pulled off a reforestation scam worth an estimated US$80 million in an unspecified country.
"A country recently investigated a number of transactions in which people purchased forested land with boundaries that either did not exist or were poorly marked," INTERPOL says in the guide. "According to INTERPOL reports there is evidence that documents were forged and bribes paid to facilitate the process."
In other cases, dishonest people sold the same intangible credit to multiple buyers, making a tidy profit off global warming fears.
INTERPOL says the guide, produced with the help of Environment Canada and several other agencies, is meant to help police get a handle on green fraudsters.

BR/>

Ja, wir können ! Germany Blocks CO2 Reduction Deal.

Ja, wir können ! Germany Blocks CO2 Reduction Deal.HT: Spiegel.

There were threats, lobbying and even a call from Chancellor Merkel to the Irish prime minister. In the end, Germany got its way and managed to delay an EU decision on lowering the amount of CO2 European-made cars may emit. 

Germany has long seen itself as a leader when it comes to efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and combat climate change. Indeed, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government remains committed to radically expanding its reliance on renewable energies in the coming decades.
But when it comes to reducing the amount of greenhouse gases German-made automobiles produce, Berlin is far less ambitious. And this week, Merkel managed to block the adoption of new emissions limits for cars produced in the European Union. Stricter caps, she insisted, could severely handicap Germany's automobile industry, focused as it is on the luxury car sector.

EU member states on Thursday had been set to rubber-stamp a deal hammered out on Monday evening between the European Council -- led by Ireland as current holder of the rotating EU presidency -- and the European Parliament. The agreement foresees the reduction of a company's fleet-wide CO2 emissions from 130 grams to 95 grams per kilometer by 2020.

But Berlin undertook a flurry of lobbying this week, with Merkel even calling Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny on Wednesday in an effort to have the issue removed from the agenda of the Thursday meeting of ambassadors to the EU from the 27 member states. Others in Berlin also sought to delay the vote so as to give Germany time to assemble enough allies to block the deal. In the end, the effort was successful and a decision on the item was delayed until October.Read the full story here.

Obama Quietly Raises 'Carbon Price' as Costs to Climate Increase

Obama Quietly Raises 'Carbon Price' as Costs to Climate Increase. (Bloomberg).

Buried in a little-noticed rule on microwave ovens is a change in the U.S. government’s accounting for carbon emissions that could have wide-ranging implications for everything from power plants to the Keystone XL pipeline.

The increase of the so-called social cost of carbon, to $38 a metric ton in 2015 from $23.80, adjusts the calculation the government uses to weigh costs and benefits of proposed regulations. The figure is meant to approximate losses from global warming such as flood damage and diminished crops. 

With the change, government actions that lead to cuts in emissions -- anything from new mileage standards to clean-energy loans -- will appear more valuable in its cost-benefit analyses. On the flip side, environmentalists urge that it be used to judge projects that could lead to more carbon pollution, such as TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone pipeline or coal-mining by companies such as Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) on public lands, which would be viewed as more costly.

“As we learn that climate damage is worse and worse, there is no direction they could go but up,” Laurie Johnson, chief economist for climate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview. Johnson says the administration should go further; she estimates the carbon cost could be as much as $266 a ton.

Even supporters questioned the way the administration slipped the policy out without first opening it for public comment. The change was buried in an afternoon announcement on May 31 about efficiency standards for microwave ovens, a rule not seen as groundbreaking.

“This is a very strange way to make policy about something this important,” Frank Ackerman, an economist at Tufts University who published a book about the economics of global warming, said in an interview. The Obama administration “hasn’t always leveled with us about what is happening behind closed doors.”

Industry representatives are equally puzzled.

“It’s a pretty important move. To do this without any outside participation is bizarre,” said Jeff Holmstead, a lawyer at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP (1222L) representing coal-dependent power producers and other industry groups. A legal challenge to the determination would be difficult, but could be tried by itself or in a challenge to a specific rulemaking that uses the cost, he said.Read the full story here.

Meanwhile :

 Hmmmm.......No significant warming for 17 years 4 months.

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley.

As Anthony and others have pointed out, even the New York Times has at last been constrained to admit what Dr. Pachauri of the IPCC was constrained to admit some months ago. There has been no global warming statistically distinguishable from zero for getting on for two decades.

To the Horror of Global Warming Alarmists, Global Cooling Is Here.

To the Horror of Global Warming Alarmists, Global Cooling Is Here.(Forbes).The German Herald reported on March 31, 2013,

“German meteorologists say that the start of 2013 is now the coldest in 208 years – and now German media has quoted Russian scientist Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov from the St. Petersburg Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory [saying this] is proof as he said earlier that we are heading for a “Mini Ice Age.” Talking to German media the scientist who first made his prediction in 2005 said that after studying sunspots and their relationship with climate change on Earth, we are now on an ‘unavoidable advance towards a deep temperature drop.’”

Faith in Global Warming is collapsing in formerly staunch Europe following increasingly severe winters which have now started continuing into spring.

“Last week it was reported that 3,318 places in the USA had recorded their lowest temperatures for this time of year since records began. Similar record cold was experienced by places in every province of Canada. So cold has the Russian winter been that Moscow had its deepest snowfall in 134 years of observations.”

Britain’s Met Office, an international cheerleading headquarters for global warming hysteria, did concede last December that there would be no further warming at least through 2017, which would make 20 years with no global warming.

Yet, just last week, there was Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson telling us, by way of attempting to tutor Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, “For the record, and for the umpteenth time, there is no ‘great amount of uncertainty’ about whether the planet is warming and why.” If you can read, and you have gotten this far in my column, you know why Robinson’s ignorance is just another Washington Post abuse of the First Amendment. Mr. Robinson, let me introduce you to the British Met Office, stalwart of Global Warming “science,” such as it is, which has already publicly confessed that we are already three quarters through 20 years of No Global Warming!

But there is a fundamental problem with the temperature records from this contentious period, when climate science crashed into political science. The land based records, which have been under the control of global warming alarmists at the British Met Office and the Hadley Centre Climate Research Unit, and at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the U.S., show much more warming during this period than the incorruptible satellite atmosphere temperature records. Those satellite records have been further confirmed by atmospheric weather balloons. But the land based records can be subject to tampering and falsification.Hmmmm........"I'm Not A Dictator" - Obama's Energy Secretary says Climate Change not Debatable.Read the full story here.

Video - Global warming dumps 34" of snow at Whiteface Mountain - New York.

HT: IceAgeNow.

Related:  "I'm Not A Dictator" - Obama's Energy Secretary says Climate Change not Debatable.

"I'm Not A Dictator" - Obama's Energy Secretary says Climate Change not Debatable.

"I'm Not A Dictator" - Obama's Energy Secretary says Climate Change not Debatable.HT: Breitbart.

Ernest Moniz, Barack Obama’s new Secretary of Energy, is making it clear there is no room for dissent regarding climate change.

Speaking to his department’s employees after he was sworn in, Moniz said, “Let me make it very clear that there is no ambiguity in terms of the scientific basis calling for a prudent response on climate change. I am not interested in debating what is not debatable. There is plenty to debate as we try and move forward on our climate agenda.”

There it is, ladies and gentlemen, another intransigent pronouncement from the Obama Administration.

Moniz also slowed down any attempt by U.S. companies to export liquefied natural gas (LNG), which would benefit the economy. In Europe and Asia, prices for LNG are high, and selling LNG to those continents could create thousands of jobs. But Moniz is holding up roughly 20 applications to sell LNG to countries that do not have free trade agreements with the U.S.Read the full story here.

Related:  Anchorage sets new record for longest snow season


ALASKA - 232 days – it took over 30 years for Anchorage to set a new record for the longest snow season on record.

"How Will a Carbon Tax stop or cure this?" - Melting Permafrost: 'Scientists Warn of Dangers of Trapped Carbon'.

"How Will a Carbon Tax stop or cure this?" - Melting Permafrost: 'Scientists Warn of Dangers of Trapped Carbon'.(Spiegel).Research published Thursday in the journal Science says that even slightly warmer temperatures could start melting permafrost, which in turn threatens to trigger the release of huge amounts of greenhouse gases trapped in ice.
The frosty dungeon hides a dark secret. At least a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere's landmass is frozen and, like a vault, it holds 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon. This unimaginably high quantity of carbon comes from countless generations of creatures that have lived and died in the area over millions of years.
A portion of those dead plants and animals weren't decomposed by microorganisms because, at a certain point, it was simply too cold for that. But the permafrost is slowly melting. If large areas of ground underneath were to thaw one day, the bacterial decomposition process would pick up where it left off, releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases. In total, permafrost contains twice as much carbon as what is currently billowing through the Earth's atmosphere.
If major portions of that carbon become released, the world's climate would suffer fatal consequences. For this reason, scientists have for some time now been asking the frightening question of just how strongly global warming affects permafrost areas. Using ingenious measuring methods, they are meticulously monitoring the fate of the planet. A new study, published in the professional journal Science on Thursday, suggests that it's possible that even slightly higher temperatures could thaw out significant portions of the region's permafrost areas.
A portion of those dead plants and animals weren't decomposed by microorganisms because, at a certain point, it was simply too cold for that. But the permafrost is slowly melting. If large areas of ground underneath were to thaw one day, the bacterial decomposition process would pick up where it left off, releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases. In total, permafrost contains twice as much carbon as what is currently billowing through the Earth's atmosphere.
In periods with higher tempatures, the permafrost retreats further north. The Lenskaya Ledyanaya Cave lies at 40 degrees north latitude, in an area currently on the border of continuous permafrost. If the temperatures rise another one or two degrees, to approach something like what they were in the interglacial period 400,000 years ago, the situation would most likely look differently. "That is probably the threshold where continuous permafrost becomes vulnerable," says Vaks.
If major portions of that carbon become released, the world's climate would suffer fatal consequences. For this reason, scientists have for some time now been asking the frightening question of just how strongly global warming affects permafrost areas. Using ingenious measuring methods, they are meticulously monitoring the fate of the planet. A new study, published in the professional journal Science on Thursday, suggests that it's possible that even slightly higher temperatures could thaw out significant portions of the region's permafrost areas. Read the full story here.

'Emperor' Obama to circumvent lawful due process on climate.

'Emperor' Obama to circumvent lawful due process on climate.HT: Wattsupwiththat.Posted on February 22, 2013.By Anthony Watts.

FLASHBACK March 2011: Obama on Deporting Illegals ‘America Is a Nation of Laws,’ Presidential Action Not ‘Appropriate’ Obama Administration Moves Forward on Climate Change Without Congress Forthcoming regulation likely means no new coal-fired power plants will be built in the United States By Rebekah Metzler February 22, 2013

President Barack Obama is tired of waiting for Congress to move on legislation to reduce carbon emissions, and his administration is poised to move forward on actions to do just that—including a move that will effectively eliminate the possibility of any new coal plant opening in the United States, experts say.

“We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence,” Obama said during his State of the Union address. “Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science—and act before it’s too late.”

Source: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/02/22/obama-administration-moves-forward-on-climate-change-without-congress

Sure, let’s ignore China and Germany building new coal plants like there is no tomorrow because some activist idiots (led by “death train” Hansen)have made the weak minded afraid of the weather.

What happens when people start dying in the cold winters because they can’t afford electricity? This is already happening in Britain.

Hmmmm........ShoreBank, Obama’s Mother and Geithner’s Father – Coincidences?There is also a solid link between the Islamic Banking Cooperative, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, The Ford Foundation, Devron Bank of Chicago and the Bank of Indonesia (Stanley A. Dunham was a research coordinator at this bank and a program officer for the Ford Foundation).

Related : ShoreBank - Obama - CarbonTrading.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229805/shady-shorebank-bailout/michelle-malkin

http://knowledgecreatespower.blogspot.com/2010/05/shore-bank-obamas-mother-and-geithners.html

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/shorebank.php

Carbon tax hallucinations.

Carbon tax hallucinations.(WUWT).By Paul Driessen.

Average planetary temperatures haven’t budged in 16 years. Hurricanes and strong tornadoes are at or near their lowest ebb in decades. Global sea ice is back to normal, Arctic ice is nearly normal, and the Antarctic icepack continues to grow. The rate of sea level rise remains what it was in 1900.

And yet, President Obama and many politicians, newscasters and alarmist scientists continue to insist that carbon dioxide emissions are changing Earth’s climate, and we need to take immediate action to prevent storms like Hurricane Sandy and avert catastrophes predicted by IPCC computer models and alleged “scientific consensus.” Not surprisingly, polls show public support for controlling CO2 output and taxing hydrocarbon use – to “ensure climate security” and “save vital federal programs” from budgetary axes.
As the liberal lobby Think Progress put it, people “overwhelmingly” prefer a carbon tax on “big polluters” versus cuts in favorite programs “like education, Social Security, Medicare and environmental protection.”
Five-alarm climate claims, skewed polling questions and phony taxes-versus-grandma budget alternatives will almost always ensure support for carbon taxes – especially among Bigger Government and Ban Fossil Fuels constituencies. More rational analysis reveals that dreams of hundred-billion-dollar windfalls from slapping regressive new taxes on job creation and economic growth are nothing more than dangerous tax revenue hallucinations. They would bring intense pain for no climate or economic gain.
Employing Energy Information Administration data, a recent Heritage Foundation study by economists David Kreutzer and Nicolas Loris found that a tax starting at $25-per-ton of CO2 emitted and increasing by 5% per year would cut a family of four’s income by $1,400 annually, raise their utility bills by $500 a year, and increase gasoline fill-ups by up to 50 cents per gallon. That’s $2,000 a year chopped from their budget for food, vacations, home and car payments and repairs, college and retirement savings, dental and medical care, and overall quality of life.
Even “millionaire” families making $200,000 a year would find such a hit painful. While the poorest families might get some offsetting tax relief, most would get nothing – nor would employers.
Carbon taxes would thus increase the likelihood that many breadwinners will end up unemployed, since the tax would raise business energy costs dramatically, force companies to trim hours and/or employees, and result in an aggregate loss of at least 1 million jobs by 2016, Heritage notes. That would bring more home foreclosures, greater stress, reduced nutrition, and more strokes and heart attacks, especially for older workers whose odds of finding new employment are increasingly bleak.

No small businesses or energy-intensive manufacturing companies would get a rebate for their soaring carbon taxes. Nor would any mall, hospital, school, church, synagogue or charity group.
Hydrocarbons provide over 83% of all the energy that powers America. A carbon tax would put a hefty surcharge on everything we make, grow, ship, eat and do. It would put the federal government in control of, not just one-sixth of our economy as under Obamacare, but 100% of our economy and lives. It would make the United States increasingly less productive, less competitive globally, less able to provide opportunities for our children.
But it gets worse, because this tax on America’s energy and productivity is not being promoted in a vacuum. It would be imposed on top of countless other job and economy strangling actions.
President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has already issued 2,071 new rules and dispensed a regulatory burden of over $353 billion per year – equal to all wealth generated annually by Virginia’s private sector. It is now preparing still more rules, the most crushing of which would regulate the same CO2 emissions that some in Congress want to tax, from both moving and stationary sources. Most, if not all of its punitive rules, are based on exaggerated risks, fear mongering, junk science, and illusory health, welfare, “environmental justice” and “sustainability” benefits.
Other agencies are inflicting still more rules, and more crushing paperwork burdens. Obamacare alone will add 127,602,371 more hours per year to the federal paperwork burden for American businesses and families. That’s enough time to carve 1,039 Mount Rushmore monuments, says the Washington Examiner. Even at $25 per hour, that’s $32 billion a year. On top of that, there are the Dodd-Frank financial requirements and myriad other costly, time-consuming, economy-sapping, job-killing rules.

Meanwhile, federal “discretionary” spending skyrocketed another $129 billion annually in just four years under Obama. That’s comparable to what carbon tax snake oil salesmen claim a $25-per-ton tax would raise each year, several years into a steadily escalating tax, using static analyses that ignore all these “concrete lifesaver” effects.

And for what? The Kyoto Protocol is dead. Japan and many other countries are rejecting any new binding emission targets. China, India, other rapidly developing nations, and even Germany and Europe are burning more coal, emitting more carbon dioxide, and sending atmospheric CO2 levels higher.

And yet, average planetary temperatures show no trend up or down, and global hurricane activity stands at a near-record low. There’s no change in big tornadoes, droughts or rains averaged over the USA for the past century. Polar sea ice is down slightly in the Northern Hemisphere, but up in the Southern. And sea levels show no measurable deviation from trends over the last hundred years.

The only thing that will happen if carbon taxes are inflicted on the US economy is that American jobs, economic growth, living standards, health, dreams and lives will be sacrificed for nothing. 

We need to stop basing laws and policies on hallucinations – and start basing them on reality.Read the full story here.

Related : ShoreBank - Obama - CarbonTrading.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229805/shady-shorebank-bailout/michelle-malkin

http://knowledgecreatespower.blogspot.com/2010/05/shore-bank-obamas-mother-and-geithners.html

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/shorebank.php

SURPRISE: Carbon Tax bill coming Thursday.

SURPRISE: Carbon Tax bill coming Thursday.(WUWT). Senators Bernie Sanders and Barbara Boxer will outline the legislation on Thursday morning.

Billed as “major” and “comprehensive” legislation, and will have a carbon tax, Here is the statement from Sanders’ office (bold mine):

Sanders, Boxer to Introduce Major Climate Change Legislation

February 12, 2013

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 – Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will hold a news conference on Thursday, Feb. 14 to announce comprehensive legislation on climate change. Boxer is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Sanders serves on the environment committee and also is a member of the Senate energy committee.

Under the legislation, a fee on carbon pollution emissions would fund historic investments in energy efficiency and sustainable energy technologies such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. The proposal also would provide rebates to consumers to offset any efforts by oil, coal or gas companies to raise prices.

Environment and consumer leaders set to participate include Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org; Mike Brune, executive director of Sierra Club; Tara McGuiness, executive director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund; Tyson Slocum, Public Citizen’s energy director; and David Bradley, National Community Action Foundation executive director.

Who:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)

Bill McKibben, 350.org founder

Mike Brune, Sierra Club executive director

Tara McGuiness, CAP Action Fund executive director

Tyson Slocum, Public Citizen’s Energy Program director

David Bradley, National Community Action Foundation executive director

What: News conference on climate change legislation

When: 11 a.m., Thursday, Feb. 14

Where: SD-406, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing room

Hmmmm......Hooooray another new tax coming aren't you glad you voted for Obama?Read the full story here.

Video - Obama’s climate change inauguration speech

Marc Morano and Ezra discuss why President Obama made climate change a major focus of his inauguration speech.HT: SunNewsNetwork.

The Carbon-Tax-Swap Fantasy.

The Carbon-Tax-Swap Fantasy.(Heritage).By Katie Tubb.To its credit, the Obama Administration has yet to endorse a carbon tax.
Such a tax is promised as the one-two punch that will put a significant dent in America’s fiscal crisis and the supposed impending doom from manmade global warming. This “market-based” approach will, supporters promise, bring new revenue to pay down the debt while reducing carbon dioxide emissions in a way that is less economically damaging than a cap-and-trade program.
But look past all the promises of revenue neutrality, and what do you find? A mess of bad assumptions and special interests.

Assumption #1: A carbon tax would reduce global warming. Regardless of what the truth is about manmade global warming or how fast the climate is warming or changing, a carbon tax would have a negligible effect on the global climate. Environmentalists are eager to point fingers at China when the solar industry fails to succeed even with federal subsidies, but they don’t seem to notice that any American carbon controls would have a miniscule impact on world temperatures—even if you believe the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s estimates.
Though Europe is bending over backwards to reduce its emissions—and paying for it economically—almost all of the projected increase in world carbon emissions comes from the developing world and is unaffected by carbon controls in the U.S. and Europe.

Assumption #2: Implementing a carbon tax would buck historical precedent and remain revenue neutral. It is clear that some special interests stand to benefit from a carbon tax, no matter how well intentioned. Many are already staking out a share of the new revenue for special interests—before the carbon tax has even reached the Senate and House floors.
Several politicians and think tanks have signaled their acceptance of a carbon tax in exchange for a reduction in corporate income taxes (which will never creep back up, right?) or in place of more burdensome environmental regulations (which the left will happily drop after so many years of work, right?). Sadly, even some conservatives are falling for this bait-and-switch.
Bad assumptions lead to bad policy that either addresses symptoms rather than causes or does not address the problem at all and in fact creates a new one. Even if the tax somehow remained revenue neutral, a carbon tax ignores the federal spending (not revenue) problem and would certainly increase energy prices and sock the economy.
America’s economy—from electricity and fuel to food, products, and services—depends on conventional energy, and when prices go up, the effects ripple throughout the entire economy. A carbon tax would add an unnecessary cost that would be passed on to consumers, no matter how creative Congress can be in mitigating the effects with compensation caveats. Americans don’t want to pay more for energy—regardless of which scientists they believe about global warming.
Fossil fuels may make a convenient punching bag for politicians. But government-induced higher energy prices are bound to come swinging back and hammer the economy—along with everyday Americans.

Video - Paul Ryan on Big Brother Climate Bill: "This bill is not about science, it's not about cost and benefits. It's about ideology."

HT: AstuteBlogger.

'Global Warming' - Another paper refutes the Mann made hockey stick – MWP was ≈1°C warmer than current temperatures.

'Global Warming' - Another paper refutes the Mann made hockey stick – MWP (Medieval Warm Period Project) was ≈1°C warmer than current temperatures.(WUWT).This new paper uses a rather unique proxy; high-resolution samples micromilled from archaeological shells of the European limpet, Patella vulgata. Mr. Limpet would be proud.
A paper published this week in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology finds that the Medieval Warming Period “was warmer than the late 20th century by ~1°C.” The paper adds to the peer-reviewed publications of over 1000 scientists in the Medieval Warm Period Project showing that the global Medieval Warming Period was warmer than the current warming period.
Highlights:
► We investigated oxygen isotope ratios of Viking Age limpet shells.
► Seasonal SST was reconstructed for the early MCA (10th-12th centuries).
► Early MCA winters were cooler and summers were warmer than late 20th century.
► MCA seasonality was almost twice that of the late 20th century.
The paper is titled:
Marine climatic seasonality during early medieval times (10th to 12th centuries) based on isotopic records in Viking Age shells from Orkney, Scotland.
During the 10th to 12th centuries winters were colder and summers were warmer by ~ 2 °C and seasonality was higher relative to the late 20th century. Without the benefit of seasonal resolution, SST averaged from shell time series would be weighted toward the fast-growing summer season, resulting in the conclusion that the early MCA was warmer than the late 20th century by ~ 1 °C. This conclusion is broadly true for the summer season, but not true for the winter season. Higher seasonality and cooler winters during early medieval times may result from a weakened North Atlantic Oscillation index.Read the full story here.

"Sunny Side of your wallet Up?" - Germans Cough Up for Solar Subsidies, American's next?

"Sunny Side of your wallet Up?" - Germans Cough Up for Solar Subsidies, American's next?(Spiegel).By Alexander Neubacher and Catalina Schröder.Solar subsidies cost German consumers billions of dollars a year and are widely regarded as inefficient. Even environmentalists are concerned that Berlin's focus on solar comes at the detriment of other renewables. But the solar industry has a powerful lobby, and politicians have proven powerless to resist.Germany's new environment minister Peter Altmaier had only been in office a week before he traveled to Bonn for an urgent appointment. Important representatives from the German renewable energy industry were expecting him, including Frank Asbeck, CEO of the Bonn based Solarworld AG. And they were not to be put off. They wanted to know from Altmaier, who assumed his office in May, what was going to happen with solar industry subsidies.
Ultimately, the lawmakers agreed on a plan that makes considerable concessions to the solar industry, saddling energy consumers with billions in additional costs. The plan calls for funding to install up to 25 additional gigawatts of solar power in the coming years, nearly doubling the current supply. "It's a compromise made at the expense of third parties," says energy expert Holger Krawinkel at the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, "and a disastrous debut for new Environment Minister Peter Altmaier." A new study by Georg Erdmann, professor of energy systems at Berlin's Technical University, reveals just how far Germany's current center-right governing coalition -- made up of Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU and the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) -- has strayed from its own self-imposed goals. Erdmann has calculated the effects that the latest changes to the EEG will have between now and 2030. He believes that subsidies for renewable energy, including an expansion of the power grid, will saddle energy consumers with costs well over €300 billion ($377 billion).
An environmental surcharge known as the EEG contribution, which is already added to German energy bills, will rise sharply. This renewable energy surcharge currently amounts to 3.59 cents per kilowatt hour. Chancellor Angela Merkel previously promised to cap it at 3.5 cents, but Erdmann's calculations show the EEG contribution jumping to "over 10 cents per kilowatt hour," or nearly three times what the chancellor pledged.
Photovoltaics are threatening to become the costliest mistake in the history of German energy policy. Photovoltaic power plant operators and homeowners with solar panels on their rooftops are expected to pocket around €9 billion ($11.3 billion) this year, yet they contribute barely 4 percent of the country's power supply, and only erratically at that.
When night falls, all solar modules go offline in one fell swoop; in the winter, they barely generate power during the daytime. During the summer, meanwhile, they sometimes generate too much power around midday, without enough storage capacity to capture it all. The distribution network is also not laid out in a way that would allow the country's thousands of owners of photovoltaic arrays -- a term used to denote an installation of several panels working together -- to feed into the grid as well as draw power from it. To keep the lights on, Germany ends up importing nuclear power from France and the Czech Republic. Grid operator Tennet even resorted to tapping an aging fossil fuel-fired power plant in Austria to compensate for shortages in solar power.Hmmm.....A view in to America's 'Green energy' future?Read the full story here.

The Guardian’s ridiculous claim of 75% Arctic sea ice loss in 30 years – patently false.

The Guardian’s ridiculous claim of 75% Arctic sea ice loss in 30 years – patently false.(WUWT).Reposted from “Haunting the Library” (well worth a bookmark), another clueless journalist combined with an artist/activist makes The Guardian look pretty darned stupid. Five minutes or less of checking would have prevented this blunder.
Guardian Goes “Full Stupid” on Arctic Ice, Contradicts Itself.
The Guardian managed to outdo itself in it’s latest foray into global warming, claiming that Arctic sea ice has declined by three quarters in the last three decades. In a series of “factoids” following an interview with pop celebrity and latest Greenpeace spokesperson for the Arctic ice, Jarvis Cocker, Lucy Seigle, the Guardian’s environment reporter, informed readers that:

Of the Arctic sea ice, 75% has been lost over the past 30 years. Last year saw sea-ice levels plummet to the second-lowest since records began. It is estimated that the North Pole could be ice-free in the summer within the next 10-20 years.
The Guardian. Jarvis Cocker: The Iceman Cometh.

However, the problem with this was not just it’s total departure from both reality and common sense, but the fact that an article in the Guardian only a couple of weeks beforehand had pointed out that this simply isn’t the case.
Quoting the Met Office’s Chief Scientist, Julia Sligo, the article noted that such claims were simply “not credible” -

She also said that suggestions the volume of sea ice had already declined by 75% already were not credible. “We know there is something [happening on the thinning of sea ice] but it’s not as dramatic as those numbers suggest.”
The problem, she explained, was that researchers did not know the thickness of Arctic sea ice with any confidence.
The Guardian. Met Office: Arctic Sea Ice Loss Linked to Drier, Colder UK Winters.

In fact, as the NSIDC points out, the extent of Arctic sea ice is very close to the average for the last three decades, not down by 75% as The Guardian’s environment reporter seems to be confused about:

Overview of Conditions
Arctic sea ice extent in April 2012 averaged 14.73 million square kilometers (5.69 million square miles). Because of the very slow rate of ice loss through the last half of March and the first three weeks of April, ice extent averaged for April ranked close to average out of 34 years of satellite data.
NSIDC: Arctic Sea Ice Extent Reaches Near Average in April.

Someone should really help them out over at the Guardian’s environment section. Do you have an hour or two to spare, some basic common sense, plenty of paper and some crayons?
I’ve extended that graph of Gleick’s down to the zero line, and annotated the 1980 and 2010 year values and the 75% loss of 1980 value line (3.125) for reference. As you can see, there’s a loooonnnng way to go from 12.5 million square kilometers in 1980 to 3.125 million square kilometers in 2010 to make a 75% loss in 30 years.

The Guardian is only off by 7.675 million square kilometers…close enough for journo work I suppose.Read the full story here.

How Green Was My Bankruptcy?

How Green Was My Bankruptcy?(WUWT).By David Middleton.My apologies to the memories of the late Richard Llewellyn and late John Ford; but I just had to borrow their title for this post. This paragraph from a 2010 Telegraph article really says it all…

Its 500,000 photovoltaic panels will generate 30 megawatts of electricity, enough, in the popular measurement, to power 9,000 homes. It is costing about $250 million to build, significantly less than a gas, coal or nuclear power station, which can easily exceed $1 billion. And it represents a sea-change in America’s energy business.
America has been notoriously devoted to hydrocarbon fuels. Big Oil, Big Coal and big Texan hats in the White House were seen by the rest of the world to be keeping it so, whatever the global interest. Oil barons funnelled money to scientists ready to pour doubt on the science of climate change, and conservative Republicans led the charge to pour scorn on those such as the former Democrat vice-president Al Gore who were urging Americans to rethink where their energy was coming from.

The power plant described in the preceding passage is the Cimarron Solar Facility, built on Ted Turner’s 590,823 acre ranch in northern New Mexico. It is indeed true that most natural gas- and coal-fired power plants cost a lot more than $250 million to build. However, it’s also true that most natural gas- and coal-fired power plants have nameplate generating capacities a bit larger than 30 MW…

TVA to build natural gas power plant
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press
Posted June 4, 2009
KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee Valley Authority on Thursday decided to build an $820 million natural gas power plant in northeastern Tennessee to comply with a North Carolina lawsuit over air quality.
The 880-megawatt combined-cycle gas plant would be as large as the 1950s-era, coal-fired John Sevier plant in Rogersville that a federal judge has targeted for new pollution controls on North Carolina’s behalf.
[...]
LINK

• $820 million divided by 880 MW works out to $931,818 per MW.
• $250 million divided by 30 MW works out to $8,333,333 per MW.

Assuming that the gas-fired plant managed an 85% capacity factor and a 30-yr plant lifetime, the initial capital expenditure would work out to $0.004/kWh… A bit less than half-a-cent per kilowatt-hour. Assuming a 25% capacity factor and a 30-yr plant lifetime for the Cimarron Solar Facility, the initial capital expenditure works out to $0.127/kWh… Almost 13 cents per kilowatt-hour! The average residential electricity rate in the US is currently around 12 cents per kWh… That’s the retail price. As a consumer of electricity, I know which plan I would pick. I’m currently paying about 9 cents per kWh. I sure as heck wouldn’t seek out a provider who would have to raise my current rate by about 50% just to cover their plant construction costs.
Solar photovoltaic electricity is bankruptcy the green way writ large. Here in Texas, Austin Energy has agreed to a long-term purchase agreement to pay $10 million a year for 25 years, for the electricity generated by the Webberville Solar Farm. That works out to more than 15 cents per kWh.

                                                           Full scale picture here.


In concert with his efforts to drive up the cost of coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, President Obama has aggressively pursued an agenda of financing expensive power plants with taxpayer dollars. Many of these taxpayer-guaranteed loans have gone to financially strapped companies, lacking the means to repay those loans. In most cases local utilities were coerced or enticed into signing long-term purchase agreements to buy electricity at nearly double the cost of coal- and natural gas-generated electricity. The sole justification for this “green” centralized industrial policy is the Lysenko-like junk science of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
The economics of this “green” centralized industrial policy are mind numbingly horrible.

                                                      Full scale picture here.

The capex for solar power plants averages between $6- and $7-million per MW of installed capacity. Coal-fired plants generally run less than $2-million per MW and natural gas plants currently run less than $1-million per MW. The average retail residential electricity rate in the U.S. is currently less than 12¢ per kWh. The levelized generation cost for the plants being financed by the Obama administration is more than 20¢ per kWh. His “green” centralized industrial policy will drive the wholesale cost of electricity to nearly double the current retail rate.
One need not literally seize the assets of businesses and install gov’t bureaucrats into management position to effectively nationalize those businesses. All it takes is to make them dependent on gov’t and/or direct their activities through regulatory constraints.Hmmmm.......Obama: "All the Choices We've Made Have Been the Right Ones".Read the full story here.

About David Middleton

I have been a geoscientist in the evil oil and gas industry for almost 30 years. My favorite hobby is debunking the junk science of the radical environmentalists...Particularly the junk science of anthropogenic global warming.    

MFS - The Other News

                         Afternoon Posting.

• The volatile Lybian situation live streams here.

Live Blog Libya - Al Jazeera. here.

Hmmm....by the way it seems Al Yazeera is now available on cable in Canada?"If you live in Canada, contact the following cable and satellite providers to subscribe to Al Jazeera English" Bell TV: 516 - Cogeco: 182 - Rogers: 176 - Shaw: 513 - Videotron: 173

• 'What took you so long': Stricken Libyan rescue boat finally leaves Tripoli, but why did they take so long to depart?Hundreds of Americans trapped aboard a rescue ship that was too small to sail in rough weather have finally left Libya.The 167 stranded U.S. citizens have been holed up on the Maria Dolores since Wednesday, as rough weather has prevented the ship from leaving.At the same time larger Greek and Turkish vessels have transported thousands of their own citizens to safety, crossing the choppy water to mainland Europe.The President has been under intense criticism for his muted response to the bloodshed in Libya, with speculation that Colonel Gaddafi has intimidated the White House into silence by blocking the evacuation of U.S. citizens.But last night as the Americans remained stranded, the president enjoyed a White House pop concert in celebration of Black History month.Hmmm....Other countries have send naval ships ,military planes ,the community organiser and commander in chief of the US Navy sends a pleasure cruiseship.I think the Navy command must be saying WTF is he doing now?Read the full disgrace story here.

• Libya in crisis: The key battle grounds, the areas under opposition control and the oil fields that supply 50% of Europe's supplies.As more towns fall to anti-Gaddafi protesters, names such as Benghazi and al Zawaiah are becoming famous for standing up to the evil tyrant who has ruled Libya and amassed billions in his personal fortune over 41 years.Here, with this detailed graphic, we show the key battle grounds, the areas under opposition control and the oil fields that supply 50% of Europe's oil.Read and see the full story here.

• Wisconsin Assembly passes bill taking away union rights.Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly took the first significant action on their plan to strip collective bargaining rights from most public workers, abruptly passing the measure early Friday morning before sleep-deprived Democrats realized what was happening.The vote ended three straight days of punishing debate in the Assembly. But the political standoff over the bill — and the monumental protests at the state Capitol against it — appear far from over.The Assembly's vote sent the bill on to the Senate, but minority Democrats in that house have fled to Illinois to prevent a vote. No one knows when they will return from hiding. Republicans who control the chamber sent state troopers out looking for them at their homes on Thursday, but they turned up nothing.The Assembly's vote sent the bill on to the Senate, but minority Democrats in that house have fled to Illinois to prevent a vote. No one knows when they will return from hiding. Republicans who control the chamber sent state troopers out looking for them at their homes on Thursday, but they turned up nothing."I applaud the Democrats in the Assembly for earnestly debating this bill and urge their counterparts in the state Senate to return to work and do the same," Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, said in a statement issued moments after the vote.The plan from Republican Gov. Scott Walker contains a number of provisions he says are designed to fill the state's $137 million deficit and lay the groundwork for fixing a projected $3.6 billion shortfall in the upcoming 2011-13 budget.GOP leaders in the Assembly refused to speak with reporters, but earlier Friday morning Majority Leader Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, warned Democrats that they had been given 59 hours to be heard and Republicans were ready to vote.The governor has said that if the bill does not pass by Friday, the state will miss a deadline to refinance $165 million of debt and will be forced to start issuing layoff notices next week. However, the deadline may not as strict as he says.The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau said earlier this week that the debt refinancing could be pushed back as late as Tuesday to achieve the savings Walker wants. Based on a similar refinancing in 2004, about two weeks are needed after the bill becomes law to complete the deal. That means if the bill is adopted by the middle of next week, the state can still meet a March 16 deadline, the Fiscal Bureau said. Democratic Sen. Jon Erpenbach said he and his colleagues wouldn't return until Walker compromised.Hmmmm.....People who don't perform their jobs shouldn't be paid!It's called democracy not Dictatorship!Read the full story here.

• Al-Qaida No. 2 blast Coptic church in Egypt.CAIRO (AP) — The deputy to Osama bin Laden issued al-Qaida's second message since the Egyptian uprising, accusing the nation's Christian leadership of inciting interfaith tensions and denying that the terror network was behind last month's bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria that killed 21 and sparked protests.The message Friday from Ayman al-Zawahri, the No. 2 leader of the terror network, comes amid renewed Muslim-Christian tension over the slaying of a Coptic priest and a dispute involving a monastery.As with his first message, delivered Feb. 18, al-Zawahri in his new, 35-minute videotape makes no mention of the protests or Hosni Mubarak's fall from power. Al-Qaida had advocated for the destruction of Mubarak's regime — and al-Zawahri, an Egyptian doctor, was part of a failed militant uprising against the former president in the 1990s.But the pro-democracy tone of the protests, led by secular liberals, contrasted greatly with the Islamic state al-Qaida envisions.In the latest video, al-Zawahri devoted much of the time to the Muslim-Christian divide. But he denied that his group was behind the Alexandria bombing, according to a transcript by the SITE Intel group, a U.S. group that monitors militant messages.The next day, around 2,000 Copts gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square to protest reports that an Egyptian army unit had attacked a desert monastery earlier on Wednesday. The protesters said that a military unit using armored vehicles had demolished newly-built fences surrounding the old monastery. They claimed that the soldiers fired live bullets at monks.Egypt's military council, which has been ruling the country since the Feb. 11 ouster of Mubarak, said the soldiers were removing "some walls that had been illegally built on the road and on land owned by the state."Hmmmm.....Selfconfessed 'Christian' Obama "I will stand with my Muslim brothers.Read the full story here.

• Unions Are Holding Taxpayers Hostage.By Michael Reagan.The turmoil and shocking thuggery we are now witnessing in Madison, Wis., is at a level seldom seen in America in this era. School teachers, of all people, are setting bad examples for their students. Some engage in outright fraud, aided by medical doctors giving them phony diagnoses of nonexistent illnesses to give them an excuse for near rioting instead of doing their job of teaching. There is a name for that kind of thing — it's called a crime. You know, the kind of offense that can get you tossed in the slammer. In the process they show students how to commit fraud — on their taxpaying parents.Faced with the sorry fact that his state is flat broke a la Greece, Gov. Walker — who has sought to reduce the deficit threatening to drown Wisconsin in debt the citizens will never be able to repay — is asking the state's teachers to contribute to their own retirement funds, which they now enjoy virtually free of charge. To listen to the outraged union you'd think he was trying to put chains on their ankles and enslave the teachers.To put it bluntly, no government employee — local, state, or federal — should be allowed to join a union. To repeat: They are not your ordinary workers — they are servants of the public, a status they accept when they seek government employment. It goes with the job. In return, they can look forward to a pension or an early retirement — benefits not readily available in a lot of civilian jobs.Early in his administration my father, President Ronald Reagan, faced a walkout by air-traffic controllers which threatened to completely shut down air travel. Their union, known as the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), went on strike — at the time a totally illegal action.He ordered them back to work, and when the PATCO members refused, he simply fired them and replaced them.The unions have broken Wisconsin, New York, Ohio, New Jersey, and California, to name a few. It is time to rein in the unions and save our states. The Reagan you are looking for is sitting in Republican governorships, not in Washington.The war cry against unions holding taxpayers hostage should be: "Remember PATCO!"Hmmmm.....Read the full story here.

• New Soros investment fund, profiting off Obama's 'green energy' push, hires top Obama energy aide.George Soros -- whom we're always told is not serving his own economic interests at all by promoting liberal politicians and big-government policies -- is launching a new investment fund that plans to profit off of the "green energy" boom, which is entirely dependent on government subsidies supported by the groups Soros funds.As the press release puts it, this fund will "leverage technology and business model innovation to improve energy efficiency, reduce waste and emissions, harness renewable energy, and more efficiently use natural resources, among other applications." As Soros puts it in the same release: “Developing alternative sources of energy and achieving greater energy efficiency is both a significant global investment opportunity and an environmental imperative.” Cadie Thompson at CNBC's NetNet flagged this.So, yeah. The big-government policies advanced by the liberal outfits he funds -- like Center for American Progress -- will enrich the companies in which Soros is investing.But this story gets better.Hmmmm.....And where does Obama and the ex-shorebank fit in.1 Billion Dollar is a lot of money for a re -election.Read the full story here.

• HT:JudicialWatch.Police Capt. Punished Over Islamic Event.An Oklahoma police captain with an impeccable service record has been disciplined for refusing to order officers under his command to attend an Islamic event at a Tulsa mosque.The unbelievable story was first reported by an Oklahoma news station that obtained internal memos detailing how the Tulsa Police Department punished one of its top brass for dodging a rather bizarre assignment; to attend the Islamic Society’s law enforcement appreciation day and command his officers to do the same.The veteran cop, Captain Paul Fields, said the order conflicted with his personal religious convictions and violated his civil rights. He added that attending prayer service at a mosque, meeting Muslim leadership and sitting through a presentation of Islamic beliefs was not related to his work as a police officer. Fields, a 16-year veteran who has earned many commendations, assured that he would respond diligently to a call for police service.Fields was promptly investigated by Tulsa Police internal affairs for violating the department’s obedience policy and he subsequently got “reassigned.” The department memos linked in the story indicate that the Muslim event, scheduled for next month, was originally voluntary to attend but few officers signed up and it became mandatory. A deputy chief distributed a follow up memo ordering each patrol division to send six officers and three supervisors to the event, which is described as a “community outreach operation” that’s as much a part of police work as responding to calls. The department has participated in similar outreach events at a Jewish center and various churches that cater to African Americans and Hispanics, the assistant chief said.Captain Fields remains adamant that he should not be forced to attend the Islamic gathering and has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that his First Amendment rights were violated by the department and the deputy chief who ordered him to. He is asking for $1 in damages.Hmmmm......Just try to imagine what it would be like if they were sending a Muslim Officer to attend services at the Synagogue?Read the full story here.

• HT:BigGovernment.Pigford Files: What Is the John Boyd Institute?In testimony before a congressional committee in 2008, John Boyd introduced himself and said “I am Dr. John Boyd. I am President and founder of the National Black Farmers Association, which has more than 94,000 members in 46 states.”In addition to my strong back in agriculture, I also founded the John Boyd Agricultural and Technology Institute to help educate farmers of all educational levels in order to fight illiteracy. To teach familiarity with and use of the internet, and much more. The program has assisted several thousand farmers and has been expanded to Denmark Technical College.Boyd’s National Black Farmers Association website has a page about the John Boyd Argicultural and Technology Institute as well — complete with a photo showing a road sign.In a ‘10 Questions’ article in 2009, John Boyd began one of his answers by prefacing, “Being a visiting professor and forming the John Boyd Agriculture and Technology Institute”.As I was driving through Virginia yesterday, I decided to take a drive by the Boyd Institute and hoped to walk the hallowed halls that have taught thousands of farmers. Boyd has talked about the Boyd Institute so much that I was keen to visit this august institute.But there’s no there there. Literally.I went to the campus of St. Paul’s College, a small Christian college in southern Virginia. There’s no Boyd Institute. The secuirty guard I spoke with had never heard of it but suggested I talk to someone in the administration building. I found a woman who knew about it — she told me that Boyd had never taught classes there and that the ‘Institute’ was an office that Boyd kept for a few years that he would sometimes use to make phone calls. She said she’d never seen thousands of farmers training there. Or any.But what about the expanded John Boyd Institute program at Denmark Technical College in South Carolina that Boyd told congress about in 2008? I phoned Denmark Tech and was told to visit Boyd’s website. I asked if there was a John Boyd Institute on campus and was told that they just referred people to the website. I was told Boyd had never taught classes there.I have no reason to believe that St. Paul’s or Denmark aren’t solid, small schools that do a good job for their students and I don’t want the pretend John Boyd Institutes at those schools to cast any aspersions on them. Why did these two colleges ‘host’ the John Boyd Institute? There seems to be a link — a man named John Waddell.Waddell was the president of St. Paul’s in 2001, when Boyd claims to have founded the Institute there. Waddell was president of Denmark at the time Boyd claimed to Congress that he had just expanded there. And although I currently have no clear link to Boyd related to the following charges, John Waddell was fired from his position at Denmark after an audit revealed irregularities, inclduing……a student recruitment program unlawfully paid for with about $52,000 in federal funds; financial aid given to ineligible students who did not have high school diplomas or GEDs; about $31,000 in fees incurred due to late filing of payroll taxes; and lack of compliance with state codes in the hiring of an Atlanta accounting firm.I have calls out to both Mr. Boyd and Mr. Waddell for comment about their relationship and for clarification about the real facts about the John Boyd Institute.Hmmmmm.....Something smells big time and it aint the manure used by real life farmers!Read the full story here.

• Egypt - US Ambassador Scobey accused of Deliberate Killing of Egyptians.Gamal Tag El-Din, Secretary General of the Freedoms Committee at the Journalists Syndicate, submitted a complaint on Thursday accusing Margret Scobey, US Ambassador in Egypt, of facilitating the seizure of the car owned by the embassy which ran over the peaceful protesters on 28 February 2011.Hmmmm.... Obama ....Muslim Brotherhood anyone?Read the full story here.

• HT:Ross'sRightAngle.Indonesia - Suspended’ FPI Chairman Has Wrist Slapped for Incitement in Stabbed Pastor Case.A nauseating verdict yesterday saw the sleazy bigot behind the assault on two Batak Protestant church leaders in Bekasi last year given a lighter sentence than even the measly six months requested by the prosecutor. And the slug (suspended Islamic Defenders Front leader, Murhali Barda ) is already looking forward to release on SUNDAY!This is because his time on remand is subtracted from the sentence decreed.Murhali Barda - He's Offically 'Unpleasant!'The judge observed that “the defendant had abused his role as a religious leader and committed unpleasant conduct,” according to the Jakarta Globe.Very unpleasant! At least you can tell by looking at him he’s a no-good turd.His fellow-lout, Adji Ahmad Faisal, the fanatic who actually stabbed Revd. Asia Sihombing got a WHOLE SEVEN MONTHS! Wow!And another Islamist creepoid, Ade Firman, who bashed a lady pastor, Rev. Luspida Simandjuntak, got a month less than that.The swine Murhali incited the vicious sectarian attack using Facebook, sms slogans on his handphone.He also incited the local layabouts by means of radio broadcasts.Of course the FPI suspended him, but will he be re-instated. And who were all those guys with funny white hats and ape-like expressions in the court. whom the judge had to order to shut up? Not FPI, surely not.So you can stick a knife in a Protestant pastor and get seven months?Well, far be it for me to say those sentences are a damn disgrace.Hmmmmm.....Obama "Indonesia is an example of religious tolerance".Read the full story here.

• Pakistan puts CIA contractor Davis on trial for murder.Trial taking place in jail for security reasons. American could face death sentence.A Pakistani court adjourned on Friday the trial of a CIA contractor charged with killing two Pakistanis until March 3, dismissing U.S. demands for his release.The contractor, Raymond Davis, shot dead two men in the eastern city of Lahore last month. He said he acted in self-defence and the United States says he has diplomatic immunity and should be repatriated.The case has inflamed anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and is straining relations between the allies. Pakistani efforts against Islamist militants on its border with Afghanistan are seen as crucial to ending the war in neighbouring Afghanistan."He (Davis) said that he should be given immunity ... a discussion will be held on this at the next hearing," said Asad Manzoor Butt, a lawyer for the families of the two men Davis killed.Davis, a former US special forces officer, has been charged with double-murder and faces possible execution. There have been conflicting accounts about the identity of the two victims with Davis and a police report indicating they were armed robbers while Pakistani media and some officials have portrayed them as innocent victims.With public anger and anti-American feeling running high, President Ali Asif Zardari's unpopular government had little choice but to let the case go through the courts."Davis case is not so simple as it is sometimes portrayed by some. It is a complex case involving issues in national and international law as well as grave sensitivities that cannot be wished away," presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said."The court has not only taken cognisance of it but also declared that it will decide on the immunity issue. We respect the court and will wait for its verdict."Hmmmm.....Sounds like Sen Kerry's visit 'solved' everything?Read the full story here.More here.

• HT:TheAmericanDream.Globalist Shill Barack Obama Asks Business Leaders For Job Creation Ideas Even As He Ships More Of Our Jobs Overseas As Part Of The New One World Economy.The other day, Barack Obama summoned a group of business and labor leaders to the White House and "challenged" them to come up with some great ideas for creating more jobs inside the United States. Meanwhile, Barack Obama is pushing hard for Congress to approve the new free trade agreement with South Korea. This is yet another bad "free trade agreement" in a long string of bad "free trade agreements" that are absolutely gutting the U.S. economy. The truth is that the United States has become a nation which is constantly consuming more while at the same time producing less and less. The gap between the wealth that this nation produces and the wealth that this nation consumes is becoming absolutely astronomical. But instead of fighting for changes that would keep American jobs in America, Barack Obama has allied himself with the multinational corporations that are making huge profits by outsourcing and offshoring our middle class jobs as part of the new one world economy. Our politicians can give speeches until they are blue in the face about how "wonderful" globalism is, but the truth is that it is taking millions of our jobs away and it is ripping the U.S. middle class to shreds.That is the situation that so many of our multinational corporations are facing today. In the new one world economy, they can choose to hire incredibly expensive American workers, or they can go to the other side of the world and legally hire very motivated workers that will gladly work for slave labor wages.Do you see why so many jobs are leaving America?American workers were never told that all of these "free trade agreements" would mean that they would be merged into a global labor pool where they would directly compete for jobs with slave labor on the other side of the world.But that is exactly what is happening and it is destroying the U.S. middle class.Talk about the biggest union busting plan of them all!What is going on up in Wisconsin is nothing compared to what globalism is doing to U.S. workers.And yet idiot American workers keep voting these same chumps back into office again and again and again.Take Obama for example. Either the guy is a complete idiot when it comes to trade issues or he is willingly spouting Wall Street propaganda. According to a recent CNN article, Obama actually believed it when an Apple executive told him that they make the iPad overseas because there are not enough "skilled workers" in America....He said he learned during a meeting with tech executives last week, that a big reason Apple manufactures the iPad overseas is that the United States lacks a workforce of tens of thousands of lower-skilled technicians needed to quickly produce the tablets.Are you kidding me?Oh, I suppose it has nothing to do with the fact that they can pay those "technicians" a dollar and a half hour?What a joke.But senior White House adviser (actually she pretty much runs the White House) Valerie Jarrett insists that Obama "wants to make sure that the federal government is doing everything that we can to foster the kind of environment where companies want to invest and grow and hire people right here in America."So is that why Obama is pushing so hard for this new "free trade" agreement with South Korea?The Economic Policy Institute has already said that this free trade agreement will cost the U.S. about 159,000 jobs.Hmmmm.....If he wanted to destroy America would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheStrategyPage.Battlehawks Confront Iran.The UAE (United Arab Emirates) is converting 23 of its 40 UH-60 Black Hawk transports into AH-60 Battlehawk gunships. This will cost about $12 million per helicopter (including training, parts and support.) Arming UH-60s is nothing new. There have long been "weapons packages" for the Black Hawk. There is also the ESSS (External Stores Support System) available, which gives the UH-60 two stubby wings (like the AH-64 has), each with two hard points (for Hellfire missiles, rockets or machine-guns). The ESSS are wired to connect to the UH-60 cockpit, and weapons controls that can be installed there. These AH-60s roughly equal to an early model AH-64, when armed with Hellfire missiles and machine-guns (7.62mm or 12.7mm multiple barrel rotary weapons), as well as more sensors. With this conversion, the UAE gets another 23 gunships in a hurry. Existing UH-60 pilots are being trained to do what they have to do in an AH-60.Hmmmmm.....Somebody has been shopping while recovering in the US hospital?Read the full story here.

• Amid Chechnya's Islamic Revival, Some Women Live in Fear.At the entrance to a school in Grozny, the capital of Russia’ s Chechen republic, two security guards grip their guns as they order a woman to cover her head before walking into class.“ You can’ t go inside with your head like that,” one of them yells, tapping his AK-47.The young student rumbles inside her purse before pulling out a black silk scarf.“Is this better?” she asks, covering up her entire head with the scarf, matching her kohl-lined eyes.Under the Russia-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya is swiftly becoming a conservative Muslim state, a sharp change from the officially atheist Soviet Union when women in the Caucasus burnt their headscarves. Many Chechen women here are the first in three generations to cover their heads.Kadyrov’ s efforts to enforce a dress code have angered rights activists in Moscow who say such rules violate Russia’ s constitution.But few women dare to challenge Kadyrov's rule in this southern border region of more than one million people.Zalina, a 19-year-old student and hair stylist, says wearing a headscarf is not really a choice.“ I don’ t see the point in wearing it,” says the student, whose long dark hair flows out from under her head covering. “But if I don’ t, I know I will be punished. I am scared of that.”Hmmmm......Obama "Islam is a great religion".Read the full story here.

• Mystery surrounds deaths of bottlenose dolphins as scientists investigate links with BP oil spill.Scientists are baffled as to why the carcasses of a large number of bottlenose dolphins have washed up on beaches and are trying to establish if it is connected to the BP oil spill.Since the start of the year there have been 29 baby dolphin deaths, compared with 89 in all of 2010.The same thing happened in Texas in March 2007 when 68 dolphins washed up in Galveston and Jefferson, including a large number of infants.The carcasses of 20 infant and stillborn dolphins washed up on the shores of the 130-mile stretch of coastline from Gulfport, Mississippi, east to Gulf Shores, Alabama yesterday. The remains of about ten adult dolphins, none of them pregnant females, have also been found so far this year. Only one was not a bottlenose.Scientists are looking at possible causes like cold winter and disease. But they are also investigating whether there was a link to the BP oil spill. though the spike in deaths has only occurred in one species.Mr Solangi said: 'For some reason, they've started aborting or they were dead before they were born.The average is one or two a month.'Hmmmm.....Beyond Prosecution.Read the full story here.

• Iran unveils supercomputers, hydro car.Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has unveiled two domestically-designed and manufactured supercomputers, and a smart hydrogen car. The supercomputers were unveiled via video conferencing in Tehran's Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT), and Esfahan University of Technology, IRNA reported Wednesday. During the ceremony, President Ahmadinejad encouraged Iranian scientists and researchers to develop evermore self-belief, saying Iran must become “a scientific and technological reference for the world.” The Iranian chief executive also pointed out that Iran managed to become one of the world's ten countries that design and manufacture supercomputers in a short time. Amirkabir University's supercomputer has a power of 34,000 billion operations per second, and a speed of 40 gigahertz. The project was carried out by a group of 20 Iranian researchers from the faculties of electricity and computer. Meanwhile, President Ahmadinejad also unveiled Iran's electric-hydro smart car on the same day. The experimental model of the electricity-hydrogen-powered vehicle is manufactured by Iranian researchers and is the first of its kind in the Middle East. It has a maximum speed of 180 kph and can travel a distance of 500 kilometers with every instance of recharging. It consumes 140 watts per hour and weighs 350 kilograms, with a recharge time of two to six minutes.Hmmmm.....A country full of Oil devellops a tiny electric car?Probably needed the technology for military purposes.Read the full story here.