Only The Brainwashed Say Global Warming Is Settled Science or How Obama Forced Cap And Trade On A Beleagured Nation

Republican lawmakers, coming off a loss Friday in their attempt to block passage of a massive climate bill, have seized on a global warming memo they say was suppressed by the Obama administration.

The memo, drafted by two environmental economists, is highly critical of the science behind an Environmental Protection Agency memo that found carbon dioxide to be a greenhouse gas.

Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, said the memo shows that the EPA did not have accurate information when it completed its finding.

"Over the last few days, however, we have learned that a senior EPA official suppressed a detailed, rigorous account of the most up-to-date science of climate change," Mr. Inhofe and Mr. Barrasso wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson on Tuesday. "This account, written by two agency employees, raises serious questions about the process behind, and the substance of, the Agency's proposed finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare."

An EPA spokeswoman noted that the memo's author, Alan Carlin, is an economist, not a climate scientist, and denied the claims of suppression.

"Claims that this individual's opinions were not considered or studied are entirely false," EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy said Tuesday.

"The document he submitted was reviewed by his peers and agency scientists, and information from that report was submitted by his manager to those responsible for developing the proposed endangerment finding. In fact, some ideas from that document are included and addressed in the endangerment finding," Ms. Andy said.

The EPA found in its so-called "endangerment finding" determined that carbon dioxide is one of six gases that contribute to global warming. The move, spurred by a 2007 Supreme Court decision, was lauded by liberals and chastened broadly by conservative groups.

Mr. Carlin, according to his Web site, has worked for close to four decades as an economist at the EPA.

Mr. Carlin's boss, Al McGartland, director of the National Center for Environmental Economics, wrote in a series of e-mails between March 12 and March 17 that he would not forward the critique to the EPA office in charge of writing the final endangerment finding.

"I don't want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research etc., at least until we see what EPA is going to do with Climate," Mr. McGartland wrote in a May 17 e-mail.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative think tank, pushed the memo and the e-mails this week and, on Tuesday, sent the EPA a formal request that it release the report.

"EPA sits on this report for over three months, and then only allows it to be made public on the author's personal Web site," CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman said. "The fact that we have to formally re-file it with the agency indicates how unreal this situation is."

Global warming skeptics publicizing the memo this week have said the Obama administration is guilty the same thing that it had accused the Bush White House of: placing ideology ahead of science.

But liberal watchdog groups have said the memo repeats false claims made by global warming skeptic Patrick Michaels and have noted that much of the report was drawn from blogs and reports that had not been peer-reviewed.

House lawmakers narrowly passed a contentious climate change bill Friday, after heavy lobbying from the Obama White House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat. The bill, which supporters say will help curb global warming, now moves to the Senate. [source]

Why I Asked Pam To Marry Me

I am a very lucky man. I asked the best woman I have ever met to marry me, and she said yes.

Pam and I are so much alike that it sometimes stuns me. We are both introspective, sensitive people who seek harmony with others, and are all too happy to stand alone if no one understands that. In fact, we have both been loners most of our lives. However, she hasn't let the world crush her and turn her bitter. She has a quick laugh, and I'm forever blessed that she sees humor in the same things I do.

She has just finished working at Sally's here in Ft Myers for the past year and a half. She took the job when 99% of the women out there with her college degree and experience wouldn't have even considered a point-of-sale retail job. The job is for women who are knowledgeable in hair care, preferably former hairdressers.

She had many fears about answering all of the customers' myriad of hair treatment questions when she first started. The women she worked with were a mixed bag. They were mostly cool to her, and her manager has been less than professional the entire time she has worked there. Pam is the only dependable person on the staff (only one with a car, who doesn't steal from the register, and doesn't leave the store early or call in sick), and that means even more resentment from her co-workers.

But she has smiled to every customer who walks in Sally's door, listened intently as they described what they wanted to do to their hair, nails, etc, then thoughtfully offered them appropriate product choices. She read up on all things hair coloring, and has turned into the one person on the staff who customers enjoy and trust.

But Sally's has only given her one raise in 18 months, a measely 50-cent bump from a minimum-wage start after working for ten years making twice that as a graphic artist. Sally's management is so unprofessional that they don't even know how to treat someone like Pam when they are lucky enough to find her.

So we are finally leaving Ft Myers.

Don't get me wrong-I am motivated to leave for my own reasons as well, but what this town has to offer professional, caring people like Pam has left me cold.

We are leaving in ten days to Omaha, NE, after many months of diligent research. It is a midwestern state with the best economy in the nation right now. Omaha is a hub city, where many large companies seek to build because shipping and distribution is more cost-effective. Besides being the home of the world's most wealthy man, Warren Buffet, it is home to five Fortune 500 companies' headquarters, and many more solid, time-tested businesses have called it home for a long time.

Florida has suffered from a climate of here-today-gone-tomorrow type of businesses, which attracts the kind of scurilous merchants she and I both are tired of. I am anxious to take her to a better place, and she is more than ready for the change.

And that is the kind of thing that makes me realize just how lucky I am to have her: she and I have the same kind of value system. It is why I asked her to marry me on Stone Mountain, Georgia a few months ago: I didn't want to let her get away. My life has been spent with too many women who didn't share my worldview, my sensibilities, and I honestly began to think that I was the one who was wrong to feel the way I did.

Finding Pam was like finding myself. After being with her, I began to feel more acceptance in myself, the way I view things, and how I feel about people, events, and life. Needless to say, I have a much better outlook about life than I have ever had. For the first time in my 43 years, I can now say I have found someone I want to have a family with.

Barry In Charge: Driving Muslims To Hate Us In Indonesia

So this is what "repairing our image around the world" looks like, eh?

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Thousands of followers of a conservative Islamic group held peaceful demonstrations Sunday in several Indonesian cities against the planned visit of President Barack Obama.

Witnesses and police said members of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir protested in East Java's provincial capital of Surabaya, South Sulawesi's capital of Makassar and three other cities. The group, an international network which believes Muslims should unite in a single global state governed by Islamic law, urged the Indonesian government to reject the American leader's trip, scheduled for late March.

"We know Obama spent his childhood in Indonesia, but as president his policy contradicts the people's interests in Indonesia," protest organizer Nasrudin said in Makassar.

Hundreds of police monitored the protests, which drew around 2,000 people outside the U.S. Consulate in Surabaya and another 2,000 in the streets of Makassar. No violence was reported. Dozens of demonstrators also rallied in the Java city of Yogyakarta, the West Kalimantan town of Pontianak and the eastern town of Mataram.

Men and women wearing black veils held up yellow banners reading "Reject the visit of Obama" as they marched in the streets of the two larger cities.

"He doesn't work for a peaceful world ... on the contrary, Obama is the same as George Bush, who has destroyed the Muslim world in Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore we have to reject the visit of Obama to Indonesia," said Nasrudin, who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation. Most of its nearly 200 million Muslims practice a moderate form of the faith.

The country's largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, and its second largest, Muhamadyah, have both welcomed Obama's visit. (source)

Netanyahu Regrets Settler Homes ‘Incident’

The Israeli prime minister expressed regret on Sunday for the announcement last week during a visit by the US vice-president of a plan to build Jewish settler homes in mostly Arab East Jerusalem.

But, in his first public remarks since the proposal was unveiled last Tuesday, Benjamin Netanyahu gave no indication of cancelling the construction. He also played down the growing confrontation with Washington that the proposal and the timing of its disclosure – made while Joe Biden was in Israel – have triggered.

Mr Netanyahu told his cabinet: “There was a regrettable incident here, which occurred innocently. It was hurtful and certainly it should not have happened.”

The announcement to build 1,600 houses in the Jewish neighbourhood of Ramat Shlomo in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, which Palestinians view as the capital of their future state, appears to have spurred the biggest crisis between Israel and the US, its closest ally, in years.

Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, on Friday used unusually harsh words by blasting the Israeli disclosure as “insulting” because it took place during a visit by Mr Biden that was aimed at boosting a new round of US-mediated Middle East peace talks.

The same day, Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, was summoned to an unscheduled meeting with James Steinberg, US deputy secretary of state, according to Israeli media.

Mr Netanyahu has said he did not know of the approval of the construction plan by the interior ministry, which is controlled by the ultra-orthodox, pro-settler Shas party that is a key member of his governing coalition.

He tried to deflect media reports of a growing confrontation between his predominantly pro-settler government and the Obama administration. “I suggest not to get carried away and to calm down,” he said.

Nevertheless, he added that he has appointed a group of senior officials to probe into the events that led to the announcement “to ensure procedures will be in place to prevent those kinds of incidents in the future”.

A US envoy is due in the region later in the week to try to restart peace talks that have been suspended since December 2008. The Palestinians have resisted restarting negotiations without a total Israeli settlement freeze.

The settlement plan has prompted a torrent of condemnation of Mr Netanyahu by influential Israeli media commentators.

In a front-page editorial titled Time to Panic in the mass-selling Maariv newspaper, Ben Caspit, a veteran political correspondent, wrote on Sunday: “The crisis is still in full force and is reaching new heights. It seems to be much worse than anything we have known in the past decade.”

Yaron Ezrahi, a political scientist at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, said the US might try to take advantage of the situation.

He added: “The people in the White House are thinking of how to exploit this crisis to extract more concessions from Israel for the peace negotiations.”

Such concessions, he added, might be a cancellation of last week’s approval of the building plan or an extension of the 10-month partial freeze on construction in the occupied West Bank, which expires in September.

David Axelrod, a senior aide to Barack Obama, US president, yesterday told NBC’s Meet the Press programme that Mr Netanyahu’s comments in response to US criticism showed “the message was received”, Reuters reported from Jerusalem.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. (source)

House Vote Counter Hunting For Health Care Votes

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina

WASHINGTON — The Democrat's chief vote counter in the House says that right now there aren't enough votes to pass President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

But Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina says he's confident that the legislation will pass. He says the White House and Democratic leaders in Congress have gotten to a point where there's a way to send the measure to the president's desk for his signature.

Clyburn tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that "a comfort level" has been reached among the House, Senate and White House on details about the sweeping legislation. But he concedes that House supporters don't have the necessary votes right now.

House Democratic leaders are pressing for a vote on their bill as early as this coming week. (source)

Pelosi Confident House Will Pass Health Care Bill

SAN FRANCISCO – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Saturday she's confident the House will pass health care legislation and dismissed Republican criticism that she did not have enough votes for the measure.

"We're very excited about where we are and will not be deterred by estimates that have no basis in fact," she said during a dedication of the renamed Lim P. Lee Post Office in San Francisco. The post office was renamed after the nation's first Chinese-American postmaster.

Pelosi declined to say when House members would vote on a health care bill, or how many votes that she had secured. Although she added that lawmakers were "on the verge of making history."

She also dismissed criticism by House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio that she did not have sufficient votes.

"I'm never dependent on Congressman Boehner's count. I never have," she said to a smattering of laughter from the crowd.

House Democratic leaders are pressing for a vote on their bill as early as this coming week.

The legislation would provide health care to tens of millions who currently lack it. It would require almost everyone to obtain coverage and subsidize the cost of premiums for poor and middle-income Americans.

It would also ban insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions.

The health care bill appeared to be on the verge of passing in early January before Democrats lost a special election in Massachusetts to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy and with it, their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

In the weeks since, the White House and Democrats have embarked on a rescue strategy that would require the House to pass legislation that cleared the Senate in December before both houses approve a second bill that makes changes to the first.

But some anti-abortion Democrats in the House have balked at the bill, and it's not clear they will vote for final passage. The bill needs 216 votes to clear the House.

Lesson On Progressives: Globalism And Soros

Mexico Gunmen Kill American Consulate Staff

View of the US Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua State, Mexico on March 2.

As the third world experience we call "Mexico" spills into our country, will Barry use this as an excuse to extend health care to all Mexicans?

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Gunmen in the drug war-plagued Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez killed two Americans and a Mexican linked to the local U.S. consulate, an attack U.S. President Barack Obama said "outraged" him.

An American woman working at the consulate in Ciudad Juarez, just over the border from El Paso, Texas, and her U.S. husband were fatally shot by suspected drug gang hitmen in broad daylight on Saturday as they left a consulate social event, U.S. and Mexican officials told Reuters.

A Mexican man married to another consulate employee was killed around the same time in another part of the city after he and his wife left the same event, a U.S. official said.

The U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said it was not clear if the victims had been specifically targeted, and the motive for the attacks was unknown.

Bloodshed has exploded in recent months in Ciudad Juarez as the head of the Juarez cartel, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, fights off a bloody offensive by Mexico's No. 1 fugitive drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, at the worst hotspot of Mexico's three-year-old drug war.

"The president is deeply saddened and outraged by the news," said White House National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer. He said Obama "shares in the outrage of the Mexican people at the murders of thousands in Ciudad Juarez and elsewhere in Mexico."

The U.S. State Department updated its warning on travel to Mexico to say it had authorized the departure of dependents of U.S. government personnel from consulates in Ciudad Juarez and five other northern border cities.

Nearly 19,000 people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon came to power in Mexico in late 2006 and launched a military assault on the country's powerful drug cartels, sparking a surge in violence that has alarmed Washington, foreign investors and tourists.

Most victims are rival traffickers and police, and to a lesser extent soldiers, local officials and bystanders. It is rare for drug gang hitmen to target foreigners.

"The Mexican authorities are determined to clarify what happened and bring those responsible to justice," the Mexican Foreign Ministry said of Saturday's attacks.

CHILDREN SURVIVE SHOOTING

The attack on the U.S. couple began with a car chase and ended in front of the main border crossing into El Paso, an area heavily patrolled by soldiers, local newspaper El Diario reported. The couple's baby girl survived the attack.

The Mexican spouse was murdered in an upscale neighborhood of the city when gunmen boxed in his car with other vehicles and shot him, according to a local newspaper photographer who soon arrived at the scene. His wife, who was following in a second car, was unhurt, but their two children were wounded.

Calderon was already scheduled to visit Ciudad Juarez on Tuesday, his third trip there in a month, as he scrambles to find a way to deal with a surge in killings that 8,000 troops and federal police on the ground have failed to curb.

The drug war has killed more than 4,600 people in the key manufacturing city in two years, and constant scenes of bullet-ridden vehicles and bodies lying in pools of blood have prompted many middle-class residents to flee.

Across Mexico, drug war violence is at its worst level ever, and many U.S. students have heeded warnings not to cross the border this year for their annual "spring break" vacation.

A burst of drug gang clashes killed at least 27 people -- including four who were beheaded -- this weekend in or near the Pacific resort of Acapulco, one of many popular with spring breakers.

At least 13 were killed on Saturday and at least 14 on Sunday, police said, including nine men who were killed in a shootout and a young woman shot as she drove by in a taxi.

Obama voiced his support for Calderon's drug war during a visit to Mexico last year, but the rising violence along the border with Mexico has become a big concern for Washington.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan; writing by Noel Randewich; editing by Catherine Bremer and Mohammad Zargham) [source]

Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest

Cloward-Piven Strategy

Ever get arrested, but not convicted? If not, don't act so smug. It happens a lot in our judicial system, which I still believe to be the best in the world. Sure there are corrupt judges, politicians, jury members, cops, etc, here and there in our justice system, but the beauty of it is that we can elect those who control these things. In time, the corrupt actors get exposed more effectively than in ANY other country of 300 million people as diverse as America.

That being said, it is worth noting the continued exposure of the useful idiots on the Left who are acting squirmish and anxious at the path their messiah has been on of late.

Guantaunomo Bay still exists.

The Patriot Act had its sunset laws extended.

He let the Navy kill those Somali teenagers.

He fired Van Jones for his political views.

Now this.

You can feel the breath being sucked out of their weak hearts. Loudmouth, jubilant, self-righteous one year, then this the next:

Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting.

Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.

When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.

Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.

A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.

The ACLU is suing California to block its voter-approved measure requiring saliva sampling of people picked up on felony charges. Authorities in the Golden State are allowed to conduct so-called “familial searching” — when a genetic sample does not directly match another, authorities start investigating people with closely matched DNA in hopes of finding leads to the perpetrator.

Do you wonder whether DNA sampling is legal?

The courts have already upheld DNA sampling of convicted felons, based on the theory that the convicted have fewer privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that when conducting intrusions of the body during an investigation, the police need so-called “exigent circumstances” or a warrant. That alcohol evaporates in the blood stream is the exigent circumstance to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant. (source)

Health Care Summit: When Owning 2 Branches Of Federal Gov't Ain't Enough