Archive for November, 2009

Why I like Sarah Palin

Monday, November 30th, 2009

UPDATE: The New York Times actually prints a favorable review of her book and most of the comments are about what one would expect from the Times readers.

I like Sarah Palin and have since I first heard about her record as governor of Alaska. I reviewed her book and was particularly interested in the sections on her career in local government. One reason is because I know someone a lot like her and because I saw what happened to reformers in local government in my own small city. A history of the reform group in Mission Viejo, where I live and have lived since 1972, is here. I became vaguely aware of the group when the apartment issue reared its ugly head. Mission Viejo is a small city that was planned in 1962, at a time that Orange County was a bedroom community for people who commuted to Los Angeles to work. It was definitely middle class and new homes sold for about $25,000 to $65,000. There were model homes and the homes were typically sold before they were built, at least in the early days. There was a cluster of apartments in the center of the city and these were almost completely occupied by families waiting for their home to be built.

The huge apartment project that first got my attention was a change in the city master plan and violated the principles of planning that made this a good place to live. The first planned cities did not anticipate the rise of small business and the information economy. The assumption was that most residents would commute. The city plan did not include much of a commercial zone since local offices would probably be local businesses like lawyers, doctors and accountants. Newer developments have included large swaths of low industrial park that reduces commuter traffic and allows small business to be located in proximity to the homes of the owners and employees. That was still to be learned when Mission Viejo was planned.

In 1995 or so, real estate developers proposed a large apartment project that would require changes in the master plan and zoning laws. Large apartment projects are not very friendly to neighbors. They increase traffic and often demand additional school construction while contributing little to the tax base. They also tend to attract crime and often add to parking problems since the parking codes do not anticipate families with four cars occupying a two bedroom unit. In my time on the Transportation and Planning Commission, I became very aware of these issues.

Others, who knew more about it than I did, organized a petition drive opposing the project and the master plan change. I signed the petition and attended the Planning Commission meeting. I got a lesson in local government tyranny. The agenda placed the item last so the enormous crowd, probably 500 or so. had to wait until midnight to get a hearing. This, of course, was planned to tire out all but the most enthusiastic. The Commission cared little about the comfort of the protestors. They voted approval of the project in spite of the petition and the attendance of hundreds. The scene was reminiscent of the town halls last summer.

In 2000, I became aware of more nastiness during the election. I had voted by absentee as I had to be in Ohio on business election day. Ironically, the person who was the victim of the nastiness and the cause of my entry into electoral activism, when finally elected to the city council, turned out to be a faker and made lots of new friends among developers and other shady characters. If you get involved in politics, prepare to be disappointed. The rest of the story is pretty much at the link.

My story begins about here:

Fall 2000 CIG members support Gail Reavis for city council.

Gail Reavis is a very nice lady who reminds me of Sarah Palin. What follows explains why.

Nov 2000 General Election. CIG member Gail Reavis, in her first race for elected office, defeats an incumbent after he spent $80,000 in the most costly candidate expenditure in city history.

The election of Gail to the city council infuriated the majority, which had had things largely to itself. The first of the reformers to be elected, John Paul Ledesma, was a minority of one and could be ignored. He, however, was the one who got them in trouble over the Brown Act violation since he knew they had violated it. For this mortal sin, he was ostracized. When Gail was elected, the majority felt a chill.

The majority, which consisted of two women and a man, decided that she would not be tolerated. The women would not speak to her and, more frustrating, they refused to confirm her appointments to city commissions. This had never happened before but they would not allow her to exercise the normal functions of her position. At this point, after they had voted down her nominee for the Planning Commission, I was asked if I would be willing to serve. I was interested and she nominated me to the commission. I had never met Gail before that meeting. I did have one quality the others didn’t. I had operated on one of the councilwomen or her husband. I really didn’t remember them but didn’t let on as she voted for me and then congratulated me.

For the next two years I served on the commission and got a real dose of nasty local politics. The new city hall was built in spite of opposition from the CIG group. It was far too expensive for our small city. When it opened, a reception was held by the council majority to which the city residents were not invited. It was that kind of situation. When I went to the city hall for my first commission meeting after it opened, I was informed by the receptionist that I could not go to the first floor meeting room without an escort. I wrote a letter to the local paper complaining about the whole tone of the “Taj Majal” city hall, as many of us had begun calling it. The day the weekly paper came out, I got a furious phone call at home from the city manager. He was in a rage because I had criticized the city in a newspaper. He was in such a rage that spittle could have shorted out his phone. I informed him that I did not work for him and when that didn’t calm him down, I finally told him I was recording the call. He quickly hung up. He also had a couple of rages that affected Gail who is a small stature woman and which occurred in the city hall. She called me and I suggested she get the names of witnesses.

Then came the earthquake:

Nov 5, 2002 “Shock and Awe.” Clean Sweep. Three city council candidates, strongly supported by CIG members, defeat high profile incumbent mayor and mayor pro-tem. Trish Kelley, John Paul Ledesma and Lance MacLean finish first, second and third.

Now, we had four of five council members from the reform group. The city manager knew his job was in trouble so he filed a harassment lawsuit against the tiny woman he had threatened in one of his rages. His remaining allies on the council plus a turncoat from the supposed reform majority, gave him a $500,000 settlement.

By 2004, the reform majority was breaking up under the stress of learning that power corrupts and political allies will sell out or just go off the reservation for no good reason if they are silly enough (Examples of both). Gail, however, continued to read the city check register and find all sorts of nasty little “easter eggs” in there. For her troubles, she was hated by the friends of the old majority and some of her supporters were hassled and nitpicked. Finally, she decided not to run for re-election last year. Her husband said it wasn’t worth it and she had no higher office ambitions.

Knowing the story gave me a lot of insight into what Sarah Palin went through and is still going through. Henry Kissinger once said that the politics of the Harvard faculty were far more cut throat than anything he saw from the Russians. The reason, he said, was because the stakes are so small. I think that is also true of small city government although the feckless city council of Mission Viejo may eventually bankrupt the city. There are too many employees with too high salaries and pensions and the city gave away too many handouts to friends. Some of the story can be found in exchanges of letters in local papers, like these. The big newspapers show little interest in small cities so a lot of this goes along under the radar. Fortunately, we have some local blogs that make up the difference. And sometimes we get really good local office holders like Gail Reavis and Sarah Palin and some us know enough to appreciate them.

Not enough, though.

The answer to climate science and the questions you are thinking about

Monday, November 30th, 2009

It has all been reduced to an equation, as any engineer should be able to do.

Slide1

There !

Any questions ? Sorry about the skew but it had to be readable.

All kidding aside, Climate Audit has a post from one of the warmist side that is reasonable, if self serving.

Yes, global warming is man-made

Friday, November 27th, 2009

UPDATE # 3: The IPCC chair says there is no problem. “Peer review” will save us. Full speed ahead to Copenhagen.

No surprise there.

UPDATE # 2: More chicanery. The raw data was dumped years ago and there is no way to check their work. This is not science.

UPDATE: Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson, who became famous over the Bush TANG story (He was the first to demonstrate the fact that the alleged 1972 memo was written on a computer with Times New Roman font), has gone off the deep end on the climate data manipulation story and is attacking all the stories about data manipulation and falsification as “lies.” Charles is an expert by virtue of the fact that he is a musician. He seems to have gotten obsessed with creationism and this has led to his downfall on these other issues.

From his link, a comment explains it all:

Thanks, Gareth – NZC”S”C revealed yet again to be idealogues and propagandists with little knowledge of either climate or science; mere shills for the fossil fuel industry who fund them through the Heartland Institute.

And we know who funds the alarmists.

There is another comment that makes a much more sensible point:

Sorry CJ, this time your avoiding some troubling facts. If you haven’t go look at the code (I know your skilled in this area and you will see how bad this PhD quality code is to real SW that can endanger people). For those of us who stood by you on Rathergate, while your credibility was attacked by folks who don’t know why you made sense, you should realize there are some of us just as insightful and trained to detect bad assumptions, questionable massaging, unfounded theories on global climate.

The fact is the raw data across the globe (even the CRU raw temps) don’t show runaway global warming. It’s not just the emails (which you have been cherry picking, avoiding the hard ones where people tell others to illegally destroy data). It’s the code with hard coded overwrites. It is the deletion of data that tells a contradictory story, of cutting off the picture when it looks bad.

Honestly, I thought much higher of you than this.

BTW, to disagree with global warming does not make you a Palinista or Right winger. They can be right for the wrong reasons. Just like loving you family doesn’t make you an evil right winger – something else they have in common with all of us.

Whatever your issues forget them and look at the code and the data objectively. And realize Jones, Mann et al were persecuting people with differing theories and opinions. They were the ones acting like right wing purists – not us independents who just happen to be able to detect hundreds of problems with the current theories and the methods they use to hide the full picture.

Look at the entire picture, no matter how uncomfortable

This is an example of the fact that, unlike most left wing blogs, Johnson is still posting critical comments. We’ll see how he responds.

Unfortunately, he responds like a left wing blog:

re: #35 AJStrata

And I thought much more highly of you too, before learning that you’re a hardcore climate change denier who’s not above distorting and misrepresenting facts.

Oh well. He was right about the Bush story. I don’t know where this stuff came from.

It is now becoming clear that global warming is man-made. The cause is not CO2 but something simpler and more easy to explain. It was caused by the manipulation of data for the purpose of creating a fraud. When bankers and stock brokers do it, they go to jail.

Kiwigraph1

This is what the official New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research has posted as the unmistakable trend of temperature since 1853 in New Zealand.

Kiwigraph2

This is a graphic created from unaltered raw data, which is fortunately still available from their files. The raw data at the East Anglia CRU has been destroyed, making such a comparison impossible.

Straight away you can see there’s no slope—either up or down. The temperatures are remarkably constant way back to the 1850s. Of course, the temperature still varies from year to year, but the trend stays level—statistically insignificant at 0.06°C per century since 1850.
Putting these two graphs side by side, you can see huge differences. What is going on?
Why does NIWA’s graph show strong warming, but graphing their own raw data looks completely different? Their graph shows warming, but the actual temperature readings show none whatsoever!
Have the readings in the official NIWA graph been adjusted?
It is relatively easy to find out. We compared raw data for each station (from NIWA’s web site) with the adjusted official data, which we obtained from one of Dr Salinger’s colleagues.
Requests for this information from Dr Salinger himself over the years, by different scientists, have long gone unanswered, but now we might discover the truth.

At least the data was not destroyed as it has been at East Anglia.

What did we find? First, the station histories are unremarkable. There are no reasons for any large corrections. But we were astonished to find that strong adjustments have indeed been made.

About half the adjustments actually created a warming trend where none existed; the other half greatly exaggerated existing warming. All the adjustments increased or even created a warming trend, with only one (Dunedin) going the other way and slightly reducing the original trend.
The shocking truth is that the oldest readings have been cranked way down and later readings artificially lifted to give a false impression of warming, as documented below. There is nothing in the station histories to warrant these adjustments and to date Dr Salinger and NIWA have not revealed why they did this.

These people who committed this fraud (I agree that hoax is not the proper term as it is too benign) should be prosecuted. They were paid government funds to do research and they falsified it. Why ? That is still to be determined but there are several possibilities. They could have convinced themselves that the natural slight warming trend after the end of the Little Ice Age was more serious. They could be ideologically opposed to modern life and especially capitalism. Maybe they just thought that more funds for research would be forthcoming if a crisis was created.

Climategate In Song

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Courtesy of Wattsupwiththat.com and Minnesotans

for Global Warming . . .  the lyrics say it all.

Posted by Bradley J. Fikes, who speaks for himself and

not necessarily for his employer, the North County Times

The new improved War on Terror

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Obama promised a new approach from George Bush and Dick Cheney. He is certainly keeping his promise.

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.

No, this is not a post from The Onion.

I have previously reviewed a book with a somewhat similar story. This is even worse.

They are criminals !

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

UPDATE # 5: More evidence that this was a fraud all along. The Chinese scientist I have referred to in other places appears to be the one mentioned.

In 1999, I had a stroke of luck. I asked one of the IPCC officials for the data from which one of their maps was compiled, and I received it. I wrote a paper analyzing the results, and submitted it to Geophysical Research Letters. They just sat on it. I instead published it on John Daly’s website. Today, it is still the only paper recognized by Google on “Regional Temperature Change.”

I now know my paper was not critical enough, since we have proof that the basic data and its processing is far more dubious than I had envisaged.

I tried to update my paper and resubmit it. Nothing doing. Since the small group — revealed within the CRU emails — control most of the peer reviewers, very few peer reviewed papers which criticize that group are allowed to appear in the most prominent published literature which dominates the academic establishment.

I have only been able to find a place to release my criticisms on the internet, now the only realm where unfettered scientific discussion is possible.

UPDATE # 4: If this is the best they can do to respond, they are toast. The evil “fossil fuel industry” is the villain.

UPDATE # 3: This isn’t a real update but a comment on how the lefty web sites, like the legacy media, have their eyes firmly closed. Not one mention, even in comments, of the CRU scandal!

Nothing on Mother Jones either.

UPDATE #2: The original climate data, on which all the models are based, no longer exists !!!UPDATE #2: The original climate data, on which all the models are based, no longer exists !!!

From the CRU web site: (That web page has now also disappeared.) What is left is this.

We are not in a position to supply data for a particular country not covered by the example agreements referred to earlier, as we have never had sufficient resources to keep track of the exact source of each individual monthly value. Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data.

This is surely a crime.

Say what?! CRU has lost track of the original data that it uses to create its global temperature record!? Can this be serious? So not only is it now impossible to replicate or reevaluate homogeneity adjustments made in the past — which might be important to do as new information is learned about the spatial representativeness of siting, land use effects, and so on — but it is now also impossible to create a new temperature index from scratch. CRU is basically saying, “trust us.” So much for settling questions and resolving debates with empirical information (i.e., science).

To be absolutely clear, none of what I write here should be taken as implying that actions to decarbonize the global economy or improve adaptation do not make sense — they do. However, just because climate change is important and because there are opponents to action that will seize upon whatever they can to make their arguments, does not justify overlooking or defending this degree of scientific sloppiness and ineptitude. Implementing successful climate policy will have to overcome the missteps of the climate science community, and this is a big one.

I’m just not sure it is sloppiness and ineptitude. It is also a good way to hide evidence of a crime. Businessmen have gone to prison for this.

UPDATE: Another well known “skeptic” scientist comments on the scandal.

Another glimpse into what the files and emails reveal was the report by Professor Deming. He wrote, “ With publication of an article in Science (in 1995) I gained sufficient credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said. “We must get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.” The person in question was Jonathan Overpeck and his even more revealing emails are part of those exposed by the hacker. It is now very clear that Deming’s charge was precise. They have perverted science in the service of social and political causes

Yes, they are criminals.

Lord Monckton, who has repeatedly challenged Al Gore to a debate on climate, now weighs in on the AGW leaked e-mail story.

This is what they did — these climate “scientists” on whose unsupported word the world’s classe politique proposes to set up an unelected global government this December in Copenhagen, with vast and unprecedented powers to control all formerly free markets, to tax wealthy nations and all of their financial transactions, to regulate the economic and environmental affairs of all nations, and to confiscate and extinguish all patent and intellectual property rights.

The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the “global warming” fraud — for fraud is what we now know it to be — tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world’s four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant “global warming” for 15 years — and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years.

This may well turn out to be the greatest scientific scandal in a century. the “Piltdown Man” was a minor scandal of no great significance to the world.

these arrogant fraudsters — for fraudsters are what we now know them to be — have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up. Unfortunately, the British researchers have been acting closely in league with their U.S. counterparts who compile the other terrestrial temperature dataset — the GISS/NCDC dataset. That dataset too contains numerous biases intended artificially to inflate the natural warming of the 20th century.

Finally, these huckstering snake-oil salesmen and “global warming” profiteers — for that is what they are — have written to each other encouraging the destruction of data that had been lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK by scientists who wanted to check whether their global temperature record had been properly compiled. And that procurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense. They are not merely bad scientists — they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers.

I wonder if anything will actually be done to them. There is a well-known book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I wonder if it is time for another book about the madness of self anointed elites. Actually, if you read that book, you will find that almost all delusions begin with elites. There is another concept at the foundation of market economies; it is called the wisdom of the market. One who believed in this was Bernard Baruch.

It is important to “follow what the market is currently doing as opposed to following what one might personally think the market should do.” As he said, “Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.”

The AGW theory fit the concept that a lot of people have about what is “right” and it turns out that they manipulated the facts to make the answer come out “right.” There is already enough doubt about science among people with no scientific education. Catching scientists as liars will certainly not help that situation.

Here is another valuable discussion from a scientist with impeccable qualifications.

In identifying the burning of fossil fuels as the chief cause of warming today, many politicians and environmental activists simply appeal to a so-called “scientific consensus.” There are two things wrong with this. First, there is no such consensus: An increasing number of climate scientists are raising serious questions about the political rush to judgment on this issue. For example, the widely touted “consensus” of 2,500 scientists on the United Nations Intergov-ernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an illusion: Most of the panelists have no scien-tific qualifications, and many of the others object to some part of the IPCC’s report. The As-sociated Press reported recently that only 52 climate scientists contributed to the report’s “Summary for Policymakers.

Likewise, only about a dozen members of the governing board voted on the “consensus statement” on climate change by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Rank and file AMS scientists never had a say, which is why so many of them are now openly rebelling. Estimates of skepticism within the AMS regarding man-made global warming are well over 50 percent.

Scientific Tribes, Deception And Global Warming

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Bradley J. Fikes

I don’t think the now-infamous hacked climate science emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit show that the theory of man-caused global warming (AGW) is a fraud. What it does show is the pernicious effects of groupthink and an advanced level of intellectual corruption among some of the world’s top AGW scientists.

Scientists advancing AGW banded together, and deliberately shut out skeptics from the scientific community as much as possible. They adjusted their findings to help political campaigns on AGW, discussed how to keep information out of the hands of skeptics, cautioned about keeping  “dirty laundry” confidential lest it feed the case of skeptics, and discussed rigging the peer review process to keep out skeptical papers.

The all-too-cozy relationship between environmental campaigners and ostensibly fact-driven scientists is nakedly laid out in an email from Adam Markham asking that a report be “beefed up” to help a public campaign by the Australian World Wildlife Federation:

(more…)

The clueless left

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

UPDATE: As another example of cluelessness, I offer The Nation, December 21 edition, which makes no mention of the CRU scandal which even the legacy media is starting to cover. Why do they suppose Gore cancelled his appearance ? Worried about his carbon footprint ? Hardly.

I read the Washington Monthly blog every day to see what the left is thinking about. Recently, it is almost exclusively the health care bills. They don’t let me comment anymore so I just skim the posts mostly. Today is such a good illustration of their mindset, that I have to take some time with it. The post concerns a free clinic in Arkansas that was funded by Keith Olbermann, hero of the left. A thousand people showed up to get free care. Some said they hadn’t had any care in years even though one was diabetic. One would think that this proves we need to demolish everyone’s health insurance in the country to provide care to the uninsured. At least it would if you were a leftist.

However, there are hundreds, if not thousands of community clinics. I used to be on the board of that group. They provide free or low cost care to people without insurance. They make statements about how many people don’t have insurance. What is unique about Santa Ana ? Well, 76% of the residents are Hispanic. How many do you think are here illegally ?

Just in a thought experiment, instead of destroying our present health care system and creating massive deficits and cutting a half billion dollars from Medicare, what if we gave $100 billion to community clinics in poverty areas ? If Keith Olbermann could get that much response to $1.7 million, what would $100 billion do ? What if it was $200 billion ?

We are about to spend trillions of dollars to cover 15 million people who have no insurance. It makes no sense but don’t tell Washington Monthly that. Well, you can’t tell them that anyway. They block comments that don’t agree with them.
We have the structures in place to provide health care to almost every legal resident. One quarter of the uninsured are Medicaid eligible but don’t apply. One quarter are here illegally. That leaves 15 million according to Obama’s numbers.

Many of those, perhaps half, are free riders who could afford insurance. We will destroy the present system to solve a minor problem. Health insurance is too expensive but this legislation will raise premiums, not reduce them.

Well, they mean well.

Climate change is in hot water now.

Friday, November 20th, 2009

UPDATE # 6: An elegant analysis from Rand Simberg who is an engineer.

UPDATE # 5: Another excellent analysis of the whole data dump and what it means. I especially like this summary:

The emails are in fact uncharacteristic of typical scientific email correspondence because they include:
(1) requests to delete data to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests;
(2) requests to delete all copy of emails for secrecy;
(3) colluding with other supposedly anonymous reviewers in order to reject particular scientific papers;
(4) attempting to ban critics from any peer-reviewed journals by, for example, successfully getting them fired from editorial positions;
(5) participation and publication of patently absurd graphs and theories, e.g. using selected tree rings as some kind global temperature proxy and using that to justify restructuring the global economy; or publishing theories and demanding action based on data that they would not release; and finally
(6) collusion in the public animosity and hysteria directed against individuals and institutions who felt there was insufficient evidence of global warming and its causes to justify remedial action (e.g., calling skeptics “deniers” or “akin to war criminals” or comparing them to flat-earth advocates).
All these taken together are clear evidence that the actions of the scientists involved are well outside the mainstream of scientific behavior.

UPDATE # 5: More analysis of e-mails here. This is not good for Al Gore.

UPDATE #4: Some analysis of the data so far from Powerline.
As far as I can tell from the email archive, Briffa never did respond to the plant scientist. Jones’s email warning Briffa to be “very wary about responding to this person now having seen what McIntyre has put up” was written just three weeks ago. It, along with the rest of the email archive, makes an utter mockery of the alarmists’ claim that the science of global warming is settled in their favor.

On the contrary, the conclusion an observer is likely to draw from the CRU archive is that the climate alarmists are making up the science as they go along and are fitting facts to reach a predetermined conclusion rather than objectively seeking after truth. What they are doing is politics, not science. When I was in law school, this story was told about accountants: A CEO is going to hire a new accountant and summons a series of candidates. He asks each applicant, “What is two plus two?” The first two candidates answer, “Four.” They don’t get the job. The third responds, “What do you want it to be?” He gets hired. The climate alarmists’ attitude toward data appears to me much the same as that fictional accountant’s attitude toward arithmetic.

This is far from over.

UPDATE #3: more and more on the fraud which will be hard for failed divinity student Gore to refute. This is really going to be a fiasco.

UPDATE #2: Even the NY Times is covering the story which means the story is really big ! Some are even talking about a hoax!

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:
Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

Wow !

UPDATE: The BBC is after the hacker, intent on stamping out this sort of crime, no doubt.

A hacker seems to have gotten into the UK climate research unit database, including e-mails, and spread the files all over the internet. This will create a sensation in climate circles and some of the blogs have volume too high to keep up with. The news is already all over the world, at least the world of climate interest.

The director of Britain’s leading Climate Research Unit, Phil Jones, has told Investigate magazine’s TGIF Edition tonight …”It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.”…

TGIF asked Jones about the controversial email discussing “hiding the decline”, and Jones explained what he was trying to say….

The full e-mail is now posted:

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@XXXX, mhughes@XXXX
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@XXX.osborn@XXXX

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone XXXX
School of Environmental Sciences Fax XXXX
University of East Anglia
Norwich

Whoooops !!!

It may be an innocent explanation is coming but this is the most aggressive source for global warming agitation. In fact, a jury has acquitted Greenpeace activists in Britain for damaging a power plant in the interest of reducing CO2 emissions. I expect the hacker, if he is caught, might not be treated as generously.

From: Kevin Trenberth
To: Michael Mann
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600
Cc: Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , “Philip D. Jones” , Benjamin Santer , Tom Wigley , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer

Hi all

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming ? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low.

This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather).
Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [1][PDF] (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
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The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.***

Is it a conspiracy ? Some people think so. Well, this should get the pot boiling.

Rationing is here early

Friday, November 20th, 2009

The furor about the new breast screening guidelines has made Sarah Palin’s comments about “Death Panels” very pertinent as the Senate debates health care reform. First, the United States Preventive Service Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations have been attacked as rationing and defended by Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, who denied that the guidelines were anything but advisory. However, a study of the pending legislation shows she is lying. The bill, if passed would empower the same commission as the official body to determine what would be covered by health plans.

1) The USPSTF will be renamed as the “Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services” – TFCPS (Section 3171, pages 1318-1319)

2) The TFCPS shall “review the scientific evidence related to the benefits, effectiveness, appropriateness, AND COSTS (emphasis DrRich’s) of clinical preventive services” and determine whether those preventive services ” meet the Task Force’s standards for a grade of A or B.” (Section 3131, page 1292).

3) If the TFCPS determines that a preventive service has achieved a grade of A or B, “the Secretary shall ensure that the [service] is included in the essential benefits package under section 222.” (Section 3143, page 1307).

4) The “essential benefits package” will cover “preventive services, including those services recommended with a grade of A or B by the Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services recommended for use by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” (Section 222, page 106).

And finally, the kicker:
5) “All recommendations of the Preventive Services Task Force and the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, as in existence on the day before the date of the enactment of this Act, shall be considered to be recommendations of the Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services and the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, respectively, established under sections 3131 and 3132 of the Public Health Service Act, as added by subsection (a).” (Section 3171, page 1319).

So, to summarize: The USPSTF, to be renamed the TFCPS, will review the clinical science AND THE COSTS of preventive medical services and give them a grade based on those findings. The grade will determine whether a preventive service is covered or not. Services that receive a grade of A or B will be covered, otherwise, not. Most strikingly, the current activities of the USPSTF – including its new recommendations on breast cancer screening and coronary artery screening – will become official healthcare policy, and will directly determine coverage, as soon as the new healthcare reform plan is passed.

Sebilius is lying.

Here are the recommendations:

The USPSTF recommends against routine screening mammography in women aged 40 to 49 years. The decision to start regular, biennial screening mammography before the age of 50 years should be an individual one and take patient context into account, including the patient’s values regarding specific benefits and harms.
Grade: C recommendation.

Note that only grade A and B will be funded.

The USPSTF recommends biennial screening mammography for women aged 50 to 74 years.
Grade: B recommendation.

The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the additional benefits and harms of screening mammography in women 75 years or older.
Grade: I Statement.

Grade I (insufficient information) will NOT be funded.

The USPSTF recommends against teaching breast self-examination (BSE).
Grade: D recommendation.

The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the additional benefits and harms of clinical breast examination (CBE) beyond screening mammography in women 40 years or older.
Grade: I Statement.

Once again Grade I doesn’t get funded but “clinical breast examination” means the doctor’s exam to me. So we don’t get paid for breast exams.

The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the additional benefits and harms of either digital mammography or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) instead of film mammography as screening modalities for breast cancer.
Grade: I Statement.

Once again, Grade I doesn’t get funded.

In a post on another blog a couple of days ago, I predicted that pap smears will be treated the same way. Screening is costly because the doctor might find something. The Congressman in Florida who says the Republican health plan is to ask patients to “die quickly” might be interested in his own party’s plan but I doubt he cares.

I didn’t expect to be proven right so quickly.

New guidelines for cervical cancer screening say women should delay their first Pap test until age 21, and be screened less often than recommended in the past.

The advice, from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is meant to decrease unnecessary testing and potentially harmful treatment, particularly in teenagers and young women. The group’s previous guidelines had recommended yearly testing for young women, starting within three years of their first sexual intercourse, but no later than age 21.

Yes, we can’t have that “potentially harmful treatment” can we ?

And so we go skipping along the road to health reform.