"HONOLULU -- Conservative radio talk host Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a Honolulu hospital on Wednesday afternoon with chest pains, sources told KITV.
Paramedics responded to the call at 2:41 p.m. at the Kahala Hotel and Resort.
Limbaugh, 58, suffered from chest pains, sources said. Limbaugh was sitting in a chair in his ninth-floor hotel room at the Kahala when emergency crews arrived, sources said. He told medical crews that he was taking medication for a back problem, sources said.
Paramedics treated him and took him to Queen's Medical Center in serious condition. He will not be released from the hospital on Wednesday night, sources said.
Officials with the Rush Limbaugh Program released a statement Wednesday night.
"Rush was admitted to and is resting comfortably in a Honolulu hospital today, after suffering chest pains. Rush appreciates your prayers and well wishes, and he will keep you updated via RushLimbaugh.com."
Over at the lefty rag and Drudge Wannabe "Raw Story":
"Limbaugh has a long and public history of health problems. Besides his predilection for cigars and obvious weight problem, the conservative radio icon also has a storied history of prescription drug abuse."
Lefty Raw Story fails to mention that Limbaugh has been under the weight radar for months now. I would peruse the lefty blogs for the typical "I hope he dies" comments, but it's not worth it.
I had an AT&aT account many years ago and could go on about nefarious billing problems, service outages and the like, but while related that is not the subject of this post.
Welcome to the NEW AT&T, same as the old AT&T!
Over the last weekend I decided to cancel my phone services with them because frankly it doesn't make sense to have a land line when I do all my calling via cell.
However I do obtain my internet access via AT&T and decided to keep that service.
However during the call to one of the NEW AT&T reps he noticed that I had been paying for their DSL Extreme 6.0 service all while getting only a 3.0 service. This had been the case for about 3 years since I upgraded to the service.
The cost difference between the two per month is five dollars. However when you multiply that by 36 you get a nice refund right?
Nope. According to the AT&T rep I could only get a refund of the last six months. "
So what of the last 30 before that?"
According to the rep those overcharges had to be disputed within 60 days of each bill they appeared.
"How would I have known that?" I asked.
The rep couldn't answer that question. "So" I continued,
"What you are telling me is that you took my money without delivering a service and now will not refund it?"
"It's not that way sir...." the rep stammered.
"Well what way is it?" I asked? "How can you take money for a service you never delivered"?
Again silence.
After informing the young man that I would take this up with the local Public Service Commission, BBB, FTC, etc, I hung up.
But you have to ask, "Is the new AT&T?" To me it seems just like the old.
"WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Kerry has suggested becoming the first high-level U.S. emissary to make a public visit to Tehran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, a move White House officials say they won't oppose.
The offer comes as mass protests against Iran's regime are resurfacing and a U.S.-imposed deadline nears to broach international sanctions against Iran.
"This sounds like the kind of travel a chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee would -- and should -- undertake," said a White House official, adding it would be at Sen. Kerry's own behest.
It's unclear whether Iran would welcome the visit, and it would be controversial within both countries. The Iranian government has rebuffed other recent White House efforts to establish a direct dialogue.
The Obama administration hasn't decided whether to make Sen. Kerry its official representative if he goes, but as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Kerry can visit if the White House and Tehran both approve."
Of course Kerry and Ahmadinejad share many of the same views, like America sucks and Israel too, so it would provide an interesting meeting while Iranian cops beat protesting students in the background.
Outside of that I doubt Kerry provides much of anything in the way of getting Iran to lay down their nuclear ambitions, and in fact he might even help it along.
You all know I posed the question some time ago.
Given the growing distrust of Democrats and the rapidly sinking poll numbers of Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress, it's likely the GOP is well positioned to take control after 2012.
When they do they will be in a great position to reverse, or outright repeal Obamacare which the American public are strongly against.
The Hill asked this of Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho.
"Republicans are unlikely to repeal the health reform legislation before Congress if they take control of the House and Senate, a GOP senator conceded Wednesday.
Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said Republicans are unlikely to be able to repeal the legislation anytime in the near future.
"Technically it could be peeled back if the circumstances were right," Crapo said during an appearance on a conservative news radio syndicate. "But we would have to have a president who would sign such a bill, and we would have to have 60 votes in the Senate -- not just 50."
"So it would be a very tall order, and frankly, the likelihood's that that's not going to develop in the near future," he added."
Yes it would be, but I don't believe we would necessarily need 60.
By the time Obama leaves off I predicted that the economy would be in much of the condition it was in 1979 with ballooning inflation and skyrocketing interest rates.
I don't believe it will be as much a move to reverse or repeal as a rush and agenda.
As most of the effects would have not gone into effect until 2014 or so, there will be pressure to strip the legislation before it becomes a "benefit" to the public.
Once that happens it's always hard to take it back.
I consider it a prerequisite of every GOP candidate and present member of the Congress. We simply have no choice if we are to save America from bankruptcy.
Among other shafts that Dems have planned for America, just got this not in the mail on any increase in my Veteran Disability payments for 2010.
"2010 Compensation & Pension Rate Information:
VA compensation and pension benefits cost of living allowance (COLA) is paid based on the Social Security Administration (SSA) COLA. Compensation COLA by statue may not be more than the SSA COLA and pension COLA is equal to the SSA COLA. This year SSA did not increase COLA."
By the way it's the first time in 35 years an increase hasn't been approved.
Yet let's remember that the Democrats who run congress voted themselves a pay raise earlier this year.
But don't question their commitment to the vets.
As the Senate attempts to ramrod Obamacare up the nether regions of Americans, Bill Kristol brings to light a good point.
"There are lots of embarrassing little things to mock in the Senate bill (e.g., the special provision for Nebraska), and lots of bad provisions to attack (the tax hikes and federal funding for abortion, to mention two). But Republicans shouldn't lose sight of a core point, embodied in this passage from page 19 of the CBO letter:
"Based on the extrapolation described above, CBO expects that Medicare spending under the legislation would increase at an average annual rate of roughly 6 percent during the next two decades--well below the roughly 8 percent annual growth rate of the past two decades (excluding the effect of establishing the Medicare prescription drug benefit)
Adjusting for inflation, Medicare spending per beneficiary under the legislation would increase at an average annual rate of less than 2 percent during the next two decades--about half of the roughly 4 percent annual growth rate of the past two decades. It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care."
Here are the key ten words: "reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care."
CBO is explaining that the legislation's claim to fiscal responsibility requires cutting in half the rate of growth of per capita Medicare spending.
And, according to CBO, absent magical greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care, accomplishing those fiscal goals might well require reducing access to health care and/or diminishing the quality of health care. So less access and lower quality is a very real possible consequence of this legislation. This is a point critics of the bill cannot allow to be lost in all the hubbub."
So what do you know, there WILL be prices to pay by our seniors in this bill. I thank Bill for bringing this up.
As you know I'm headquartered in South Florida and it's easy to get this information spread around to the local senior communities.
Additionally it appears that Ben Nelson might have painted himself into a corner for his 30 pieces of silver to betray America's unborn.
Local talk radio in Omaha is hammering him already over the decision. (See Michelle Malkin on other rebellions taking place in Neb.)
But his betrayal will do nothing but open up even more doors to abortion through this legislation, not stop them.
Join me at 12pm EST for The MacRanger Show on Blog Talk Radio! Today the subject is the pending passage in the Senate of Obamacare and what it will mean for Americans, and more important, what we can do about it.
And much more. Phone in number is 646-652-4913 and the chat room is open!
See you there!
"Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, was prepared to announce to his caucus Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill, clearing the way for final passage by Christmas.
"We're there," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), as he headed into a special meeting to announce the deal.
Democratic leaders spent days trying to hammer out a deal with Nelson, and worked late Friday night with Nelson on abortion coverage language that had proved the major stumbling block. But Nelson also secured other favors for his home state.
Asked if he was prepared to support the bill, Nelson said, "Yeah."
This of course goes to the measure of a man and Nelson is no man, he's a money sucking politician, a weasel, who should be the first in line for Obamacare and complete his neutering.
The price? Of course you knew there had to be one. Via Hot Air and Michelle Malkin.
"Under the current merged legislation (the version unveiled on November 18th), the federal government fully finances care for the expanded population for two years and increases its matching funds (known as FMAP) thereafter. Page 98 of the managers amendment specifically identifies Nebraska for higher federal matching funds, fully funding its expansion for an additional year:
‘‘(3) Notwithstanding subsection (b) and paragraphs (1) and (2) of this subsection, the Federal medical assistance percentage otherwise determined under subsection (b) with respect to all or any portion of a fiscal year that begins on or after January 1, 2017, for the State of Nebraska, with respect to amounts expended for newly eligible individuals described in subclause (VIII) of section 1902(a)(10)(A)(i), shall be determined as provided for under subsection (y)(1) (A) (notwithstanding the period provided for in such paragraph)
Subsection (y)(1)(A) refers to page 399 of the original merged Senate legislation which fully funds state Mediciad expansions for the first two years. The manager’s amendment also provides 2.2% increase in FMAP to help states finance their existing Medicaid programs.
That will be worth at least hundreds of millions of dollars in federal cash for Nebraska … for the first three years. After that, Nebraskans get as screwed as the rest of the country."
It's not over yet though. Still lots of opposition from the uber lefties - no public option - and Nelson said - although now we realize he's hasn't the guts - he has the right to change his mind.
More than anything Americans have themselves to blame, they voted these clowns in, and if this passes they and their grandchildren will pay the price for years to come.
"Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), prone for throwing his own political bombs at Republicans, has threatened a local critic with five years in jail for creating the website “mycongressmanisnuts.com,”
The Orlando Sentinel reports that Grayson wrote a letter this week to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding that the federal government imprison Republican activist Angie Langley for five years because of her website criticizing him.
The website, designed to raise money against Grayson, catalogues videos and news clippings that portray the provocative congressman in an unfavorable light. It courts donors to donate money to help elect his Republican challenger next year – collecting $3,725 to date.
Grayson accuses the activist of misrepresenting the fact that she’s a constituent of his (she lives outside his district).
“Ms. Langley has deliberately masqueraded as a constituent of mine, in order to create the false appearance that she speaks for constituents who don’t support me,” Grayson wrote in the letter. "
Moron has NO chance of getting any such legal action accomplished, but a greater chance of furthering his reputation as a assclown.
"Sen. Chuck Schumer loves the sound of his own voice, but it carried a bit farther than he might have liked on the US Airways shuttle from New York to Washington on Sunday.
According to a House Republican aide who happened to be seated nearby, the notoriously chatty New York Democrat referred to a flight attendant as a “bitch” after she ordered him to turn off his phone before takeoff.
Schumer and his seatmate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), were chatting on their phones before takeoff when an announcement indicated that it was time to turn off the phones.
Both senators kept talking.
According to the GOP aide, a flight attendant then approached Schumer and told him the entire plane was waiting on him to shut down his phone.
Schumer asked if he could finish his conversation. When the flight attendant said “no,” Schumer ended his call but continued to argue his case.
He said he was entitled to keep his phone on until the cabin door was closed. The flight attendant said he was obliged to turn it off whenever a flight attendant asked.
“He argued with her about the rule,” the source said. “She said she doesn’t make the rules, she just follows them.”
When the flight attendant walked away, the witness says Schumer turned to Gillibrand and uttered the B-word.
“The senator made an off-the-cuff comment under his breath that he shouldn’t have made, and he regrets it,” Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon told Shenanigans.
Actually, in history people have been locked up for such harassment of a flight attendant.
In fact!
TITLE 49 > SUBTITLE VII > PART A > subpart iv > CHAPTER 465 > § 46504Prev | Next
§ 46504.
Interference with flight crew members and attendants
An individual on an aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States who, by assaulting or intimidating a flight crew member or flight attendant of the aircraft, interferes with the performance of the duties of the member or attendant or lessens the ability of the member or attendant to perform those duties, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both. However, if a dangerous weapon is used in assaulting or intimidating the member or attendant, the individual shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
It's a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama isn't the genius that even his most ardent admirers thought he was. ABC News reports that their recent poll now has him at 50%, matching other recent polling, which only shows that much of America is realizing it as well.
The other night on 60 minutes Obama gave himself a "B+" which means that along with being unpopular he's delusional as well.
"Overall, 44% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. That’s the lowest level yet measured for this president. Previously, his overall approval rating had fallen to 45% twice, once in early September and once in late November.
Fifty-five percent (55%) now disapprove."
"Besides repeatedly referring to undocumented immigrants as “illegals,” a term that’s considered pejorative and offensive by immigrants rights organizations, the song primarily focuses on spreading false and hateful stereotypes about Latinos who are portrayed as bug-carrying invalids"
Oh and who are those "immigrants rights organizations"? La Raza I'll bet!
"Washington (CNN) - Sen. Joe Lieberman – whose opposition to a public insurance option has drawn outrage from liberal groups for months – is used to finding himself in progressive crosshairs.
Now it's his wife's turn.
Activists are setting their sights on Hadassah Lieberman, launching a celebrity-studded petition drive to convince the nation's largest breast cancer non-profit to end the Connecticut senator's wife role as a spokeswoman.
The move to pressure the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation came the same day Lieberman's husband angered Democrats by announcing that he would not support an expansion of Medicare to cover individuals under the age of 55. Organizers did not point to that decision, instead citing Hadassah Lieberman's own ties to the health care industry.
Lieberman has worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer and ALCO.
"
We are asking Ellen DeGeneres, Christie Brinkley and other high-profile celebrities who are associated with Komen to demand that no more money raised for cancer treatment be given to Hadassah Lieberman or any other ex-Pharma/Insurance strategists," said Jane Hamsher, founder of the Firedoglake blog."
Of course Hamsher is a known anti-semetic, with more than several shots at Jews including Lieberman. By the way, just who is Hadassah Lieberman?
"She is the daughter of Rabbi Samuel Freilich, a Holocaust survivor from Munkács, Carpathian Ruthenia (now Mukachevo, part of Ukraine and predecessor Ukrainian SSR since 1945, 1939-45 by Hungary of Axis powers), who died in 1993, and Ella Wieder Freilich, also a Holocaust survivor who died on August 6, 2004."
As a cancer survivor along with my wife we owe nothing but gratitude to Mrs. Lieberman and many like her.
As I said, shameful.
UPDATE:
CNN has received the following statement from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation:
Hadassah Lieberman is an important and valued Global Ambassador for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As a Global Ambassador, Ms. Lieberman is focused on helping us reach out and educate women outside our borders about breast cancer, sharing our knowledge and experience in a culturally sensitive way that is making a real impact on the lives of women across the globe. We have every intention of continuing our relationship with Ms. Lieberman in our mutual pursuit of a world without breast cancer.
By the way, please donate to the Komen Foundation here.
"Two key senators criticized the most recent healthcare compromise Sunday, saying the policies replacing the public option are still unacceptable.
Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) both said a Medicare "buy-in" option for those aged 55-64 was a deal breaker.
"I'm concerned that it's the forerunner of single payer, the ultimate single-payer plan, maybe even more directly than the public option," Nelson said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
Lieberman said Democrats should stop looking for a public option "compromise" and simply scrap the idea altogether."
Which effectually kills the Senate bill for this year and perhaps for good. Senate liberals are NOT going to vote for anything without a public option and the rest won't vote with it in.
"LONDON — E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data — but the messages don't support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.
The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
The scientists were keenly aware of how their work would be viewed and used, and, just like politicians, went to great pains to shape their message. Sometimes, they sounded more like schoolyard taunts than scientific tenets.
The scientists were so convinced by their own science and so driven by a cause "that unless you're with them, you're against them," said Mark Frankel, director of scientific freedom, responsibility and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also reviewed the communications.
Frankel saw "no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data, although concerns could be raised about some instances of very 'generous interpretations."
Obviously the AP has time to jump into this as it doesn't cover Barack Obama's problems, and aside from "fact checking" Going Rogue, seems to have not much to do. How "exhaustive" was this endeavor? Who knows, but excuse me if we don't take the word of the AP.
Simply that "vast body of evidence" cuts both ways and in fact the evidence against GW is just as vast.
Of course you need not wonder why the AP would do such a "fact check", considering the staggering 27,342 articles supporting GW it has issued make this about as suspect as Climategate itself.
UPDATE: Andrew Bolt uncovers the AP bias on this one.
"Rod Blagojevich's lawyers want the FBI to give up details of interviews conducted last year of President Obama, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett and others as part of the investigation into the former governor.
In a Friday filing, Blagojevich attorneys also asked for information regarding first lady Michelle Obama. However, a source said late Friday that the FBI never interviewed the first lady. Then-President-elect Obama, Emanuel and Jarrett sat down with the FBI about a year ago -- just after Blagojevich was arrested on charges of trying to sell Obama's recently vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder.
Obama revealed he was interviewed in a report he made public last December.
The defense request, filed in federal court, asks for "notes, transcripts and reports" of interviews with the Obamas, Emanuel, Jarrett and union chiefs Thomas Balanoff and Andy Stern.
The request was part of a larger bid by defense lawyers to have prosecutors turn over additional materials, including witness statements, six months before the June trial date. Typically, prosecutors give the defense such information 30 days before the trial."
Regardless if anything is discovered through this Obama can ill afford the negative attention. Just a hint of corruption can tank his already tanking numbers further.
Even more if the discovery, discovers something.
"A judge in New York ordered that ACORN’s federal funding be restored, rolling back a slew of Congressional actions that sought to stop taxpayer money from flowing to the community group on the heels of a fall full of embarrassments for it.
Nina Gershon, a district judge in New York, issued a preliminary injunction directing the department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Management and Budget and the Treasury department to disregard a bill signed into law by President Obama that prohibited federal funding of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. '
“The question here is only whether the Constitution allows Congress to declare that a single, named organization is barred from all federal funding in the absence of a trial,” Gershon wrote in her opinion.
“Because it does not, and because the plaintiffs have shown the likelihood of irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction, I grant the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.”
Gershon said that “none of the government’s justifications stand up to scrutiny” and that “no non-punitive rational” is obvious.
ACORN was the subject of bipartisan disdain in September, after undercover videos were released that seemed to show the organization’s employees offering advice on how to break the law. Republicans and Democrats voted to stop federal funding of the group – a measure signed into law by the president on the back of an appropriations bill."
Gershon is another Clinton appointee - no surprise here.
The ruling itself is fundamentally flawed, and is only acting as a stop-gap until a appeal likely reverses it. Congress has both the authority and the duty to stop the funding of corrupt organizations and ACORN's actions over the last several years more than justify the withdraw of taxpayer monies.
Gershon has issued other activist rulings such as In 1999, Gershon ruled that New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani could not cut the Brooklyn Museum of Art's funding after it mounted an exhibit entitled "Sensation". In 2000, Gershon ruled that New York's century-old kosher food laws violated the First Amendment.
I really wanted to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt during his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize. I tried, I really did.
But in a rambling diatribe which used the "I" word more times than I've heard in any recent speech, he got facts wrong, and spun current history to suit himself.
As I'm let to the game having been on the road most of the day I've clipped a few of my more favorite clips from around the web.
Rush Limbaugh:
"OBAMA: Ronald Reagan's efforts on arms control and embrace of perestroika not only improved relations with the Soviet Union, but empowered dissidents throughout eastern Europe.
RUSH: What the hell is he talking? "Improved relations" with the Soviet Union? It was Reagan who refused to talk to Soviet leaders because they kept dying on him! Embraced perestroika? Does anybody really know what perestroika is? I got it from Gorbachev's own damn book. By perestroika, Gorbachev meant retrenchment of Leninism. He was trying to save communism while it was falling apart. He was trying to do things that were incompatible. He was trying to -- first place, he didn't have the economy to keep up with us on this Strategic Defense Initiative; they just couldn't keep up with us. They were a Third World country with a first-rate military. They had no food in the stores. They had a typical communist country. They had to build walls to keep people in their countries. But, you know, blue jeans showed up over there then copies of the TV show Dallas, and the Russian people began to see an America unlike that which they were told about. They were constantly lied about what life was like here. And then they loved blue jeans, they saw Dallas, and somebody snuck pirated copies of Dynasty in there, and that's all she wrote.
"First Obama tells us how humble he is. Then he tells us that he is bending history in the direction of justice – a phrase that associates himself with Martin Luther King. Charming.
But it gets worse. The slightness of Obama’s achievements is (the president says) only a partial and lesser reason for the controversy over the prize. The “most profound” reason that the award has been so disparaged is … George W. Bush! Yes, Obama’s prize is controversial because the country is fighting two wars, one of which it did not seek – but the other of which we apparently did seek. Or rather – that George W. Bush sought.
While the one war is an effort of self-defense , the other is … not."
"WASHINGTON — Democratic senators say they have a tentative deal to drop a government-run insurance option from health care legislation. No further details were immediately available.
But liberals and moderates have been discussing an alternative, including a private insurance arrangement to be supervised by the federal agency that oversees the system through which lawmakers purchase coverage. Additionally, talks centered on opening up Medicare to uninsured Americans beginning at age 55, a significant expansion of the large government health care program that currently serves the over-65 population.
Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa told reporters he didn't like the agreement but would support it to the hilt in an attempt to pass health care legislation."
Dirty Harry beat feet to the microphones to deny everything...
"Reid said reports the government-run "public option" had been dropped were "not true."
Hogwash.
It's DOA, believe it.
This is all smoke and mirrors.
Mark it here there will be no public option or anything like it. That Medicare "buy-in" is a non-starter, and idiotic. The system is broke now, and inviting another ten million to join before their time won't do anything except to hurry the demise.
The majority of Americans are against such a system and Obama's poll numbers are heading south faster than Global Warming science. He, nor the Senate have the political clout now to carry this through, the ides of 2010 approach.
In fact, because a measure to insure a prohibition to public funding on abortion failed today, the entirety of the Senate bill is up in the air. In fact, it's a major can of wup-ass as without it you can kiss Ben Nelson's vote goodbye. He knows he can't support anything that his constituents have repeatedly polled against. It would be suicide.
Also, via The Corner:
"The National Right to Life Commitee (NRLC) has come out against the Reid bill as it now stands, and warns that "a number of pro-life Democrats in the House, who supported passage of health care legislation on November 7, will not vote for the Senate bill in its current form. So, this is a long way from over."
Like I said, it's DOA and likely the bill in it's present form.
"COPENHAGEN — Despite recent fluctuations in global temperature year to year, which fueled claims of global cooling, a sustained global warming trend shows no signs of ending, according to new analysis by the World Meteorological Organization made public on Tuesday.
The decade of the 2000s is very likely the warmest decade in the modern record, dating back 150 years, according to a provisional summary of climate conditions near the end of 2009, the organization said.
The period from 2000 through 2009 has been “warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s and so on,” said Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the international weather agency, speaking at a news conference at the climate talks in Copenhagen.
The international assessment largely meshes with an interim analysis by the National Climatic Data Center and NASA in the United States, both of which independently estimate global and regional temperature and other weather trends.
Mr. Jarraud also said that 2009, with some uncertainty because several weeks remain, appears to be the fifth warmest year on record."
The WMO is heavily funded by Soros - who has given more than 1 Billion to to "clean air efforts", has his hands all over this, and by far with the largest investment he stands the chance of the greatest loss.
As to the WMO's "data", well we know that's not true either.
We know that that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
As noted by many last year, evidence is far greater for a cooling, rather than for a warming planet.
"Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on.No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all four sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down."
And it's no surprise. Time's Global Warming cheerleader, Bryan Walsh and friend of Al Gore, tries to throw water of the raging fire that has been exposed by the Climategate scandal. Walsh has been regurgitating Gore's mantra for three years now and has a lot to lose if it were found the "books were cooked".
"The truth is that the e-mails, while unseemly, do little to change the overwhelming scientific consensus on the reality of man-made climate change. But they do hand a powerful political card to skeptics at the start of perhaps the most important environmental summit in history."
Tells you all you want to know. You can sense the anxiety, the fear...
"Put it this way: when it comes to climate-science analysis from the representative of the world's biggest oil-producing state, it's wise to be suspicious. In the weeks since the e-mails first became public, many climate scientists and policy experts have looked through them, and they report that the correspondence does not contradict the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming, which has been decades in the making. "The content of the stolen e-mails has no impact whatsoever on our overall understanding that human activity is driving dangerous levels of global warming," wrote 25 leading U.S. scientists in a letter to Congress on Dec. 4. "The body of evidence that underlies our understanding of human-caused global warming remains robust."
Well of course not! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! Again, Time's authority on anything about the environment is wanting, having predicted an coming ace age in 1974. Back then there were a lot of scientist too.
"Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F.
Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.
Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds —the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world. Indeed it is the widening of this cap of cold air that is the immediate cause of Africa's drought.
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
The Nevada Democrat, in a sweeping set of accusations on the Senate floor, also compared health care foes to those who opposed women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement — even though it was Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, who unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and it was Republicans who led the charge against slavery.
Senate Republicans on Monday called Reid’s comments “offensive” and “unbelievable.”
Now, for history's sake, just who were those "racists" who "clung to the institution of slavery" back then? Oh yeah, they was Democrats. But not just then, but for a long time afterwards. In fact had they had their way in in 1965 there would have been NO Civil Rights Act.
Again,
"A little known fact of history involves the heavy opposition to the civil rights movement by several prominent Democrats.
Similar historical neglect is given to the important role Republicans played in supporting the civil rights movement. A calculation of 26 major civil rights votes from 1933 through the 1960's civil rights era shows that Republicans favored civil rights in approximately 96% of the votes, whereas the Democrats opposed them in 80% of the votes!
These facts are often intentionally overlooked by the left wing Democrats for obvious reasons. In some cases, the Democrats have told flat out lies about their shameful record during the civil rights movement.
Democrat Senators organized the record Senate filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Included among the organizers were several prominent and well known liberal Democrat standard bearers including:
- Robert Byrd, current senator from West Virginia
- J. William Fulbright, Arkansas senator and political mentor of Bill Clinton
- Albert Gore Sr., Tennessee senator, father and political mentor of Al Gore. Gore Jr. has been known to lie about his father's opposition to the Civil Rights Act.
- Sam Ervin, North Carolina senator of Watergate hearings fame
- Richard Russell, famed Georgia senator and later President Pro Tempore.
The complete list of the 21 Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes Senators:
- Hill and Sparkman of Alabama
- Fulbright and McClellan of Arkansas
- Holland and Smathers of Florida
- Russell and Talmadge of Georgia
- Ellender and Long of Louisiana
- Eastland and Stennis of Mississippi
- Ervin and Jordan of North Carolina
- Johnston and Thurmond of South Carolina
- Gore Sr. and Walters of Tennessee
- H. Byrd and Robertson of Virginia
- R. Byrd of West Virginia
Democrat opposition to the Civil Rights Act was substantial enough to literally split the party in two.
A whopping 40% of the House Democrats VOTED AGAINST the Civil Rights Act, while 80% of Republicans SUPPORTED it. Republican support in the Senate was even higher. Similar trends occurred with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was supported by 82% of House Republicans and 94% of Senate Republicans. The same Democrat standard bearers took their normal racists stances, this time with Senator Fulbright leading the opposition effort."
As Michelle Malkin rightly notes Harry Reid seems "out of touch" with his own constituents.
"Reap what you sow, Harry. The latest from Nevada:
Not great news for Harry Reid: A majority of Nevadans now disapprove of Democrats’ plans for healthcare reform, according to a Las Vegas Journal-Review poll.
Fifty-three percent of those polled say they do not support reform legislation, wich 39% in favor. In October, 49% opposed it and 40% favored it.
I’m sure Nevadans appreciate being likened to slavemasters, too."
Which should be great in creating ads against Harry during the upcoming campaign season.
This is not to say that ACORN isn't a law breaking organization, note the seven or eight State Attorney General investigations into voter fraud.
"An internal investigation of a series of videos depicting ACORN workers assisting a costumed pimp and prostitute concluded Monday that those employees "did not engage in any illegal activity."
While the report, prepared by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, cited ACORN employees for poor judgment, it ultimately found they did not violate any federal laws."
Make no mistake, this move of the Obama Regime is a direct result of the exposure of Climategate. Since Crap and Trade is effectually dead in the water, the Obama regime will now force it's will on greenhouse gases.
"WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agencytook a major step Monday toward regulating greenhouses gases, concluding that climate changing pollution threatens the public health and the environment.
The announcement came as the Obama administration looked to boost its arguments at an international climate conference that the United States is aggressively taking actions to combat global warming, even though Congress has yet to act on climate legislation. The conference opened Monday in Copenhagen.
The EPA said that the scientific evidence surrounding climate change clearly shows that greenhouse gases "threaten the public health and welfare of the American people" and that the pollutants — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels — should be regulated under the Clean Air Act.
"These long-overdue findings cement 2009's place in history as the year when the United States government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution," said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson at news conference.
The action by the EPA, which has been anticipated for months, clearly was timed to add to the momentum toward some sort of agreement on climate change at the Copenhagen conference and try to push Congress to approve climate legislation."
What this will mean of course is higher prices for fuel, plastics, and just about a 1000 other things you and I consume everyday. Of course much of the "evidence" cited by the EPA come from the now discredited data from East Anglia.
Get ready to riot in the streets, it's long overdue.
In an editorial in the liberal guardian UK, which is "being published today in 56 newspapers in 20 languages", the climate extremists bark:
"Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.
Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted."
Because we now know that the data is "half-baked". The guardian, which has led the charge of the farce of global warming is simply throwing out the stops to get a result in the same way that scientists arrived at global warming.
"The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based."
Barack Obama headed for a closed door meeting with Democrats on the Hill today. It wasn't what he said that was important, it's what he didn't.
"As President Obama finished his speech to the Democratic caucus in the Capitol's Mansfield Room on Sunday afternoon, Joe Lieberman made his way over to Harry Reid.
The independent who still caucuses with Democrats wanted to point something out to the Majority Leader: Obama didn't mention the public option.
Lieberman was beaming as he left the room and happy to re-point it out when HuffPost asked him what Obama had said about the public health insurance option, perhaps the most contentious issue still facing Democrats as they negotiate their way toward a final health care reform bill.
"Well, it was interesting to me -- of course everybody hears with their own ears -- that he didn't say anything about the public option," said Lieberman.
"In other words, when he outlined how far we've come on the bill, he talked about the cost-containment provisions; he talked about the insurance market reforms; and he talked about enabling 30 million more people to get insurance.
He said these are historic accomplishments, the most significant social legislation, or whatever you call it, in decades, so don't lose it."
Obama spoke for roughly 30 minutes and did not take questions, senators said afterward."
Obama didn't speak about the public option simply because it's dead. There simply isn't enough support for it. What you were watching today was a salvage mission, not a pep rally.
Watch how Mr. "Nuance", Professor Watson, who's up to his neck in Climategate, talks about "character assasination" in one breath and then when he's lost the argument calls Global Warming critic Marc Morano and "asshole" at the end of a debate.
Join me at 12pm EST for The MacRanger Show on Blog Talk Radio. One full hour of the week and news, views and your calls! Phone in 646-652-4913 and the chat room will be open!
Today?
Climategate - What it means for the fate of Crap and Trade?
Obama's small business-less jobs summit, just who is really attending and who is not, and about those new unemployment numbers, what the media isn't telling you.
Today’s report is good news.
We should wait for one more month of data to confirm today’s report before concluding that job declines have ended.
The picture has flattened out, but has not yet turned upward.
In political rhetoric, if next month’s data confirms today’s data, we will no longer be “headed in the wrong direction.”
We won’t be “headed in the right direction until the top graph turns up.
Once job growth has broken zero, the next threshold is +150K jobs per month. That should roughly coincide with a declining unemployment rate.
We have a long way to go:
We need the economy to create 3.3 million jobs to get back to the employment level when President Obama took office.
We need it to create 7.2 million jobs to get back to our previous high in December 2007.
We need it to create about 8 million jobs to get back to full employment.
Final point, absolutely no proof that the Obama administration had anything to do with it.
"Former Vice President Al Gore on Thursday abruptly canceled a Dec. 16 personal appearance that was to be staged during the United Nations' Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which begins next week.
As described in The Washington Times' Inside the Beltway column Tuesday, the multimedia public event to promote Mr. Gore's new book, "Our Choice," included $1,209 VIP tickets that granted the holder a photo opportunity with Mr. Gore and a "light snack."
Berlingkse Media, a Danish group coordinating ticket sales and publicity for the event, said that "great annoyance" was a factor in the cancellation, along with unforeseen changes in Mr. Gore's program for the climate summit. The decision affected 3,000 ticket holders.
"We have had a clear-cut agreement, and it is unusual with great disappointment that we have to announce that Al Gore cancels. We had a huge expectation for the event. . . .
We do not yet know the detailed reasons for the cancellation," said Lisbeth Knudsen, CEO of Berlingske Media, in a statement posted by the company.
The ClimateDepot,com, an online news aggregator that tracks global-warming news reports, referred to the situation as "Nopenhagen," and evidence that popular momentum for the Copenhagen conference "is fading."
There are a few floor shows taking place stateside as well."
Well we know "why" he cancelled. We also know why the event was selling slowly. The "Inconvenient Truth" for Al Gore is that the sham is up!
We waited for this? First, let's start with the lying.
"Now, let me be clear: There has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war during this review period. Instead, the review has allowed me to ask the hard questions and to explore all the different options, along with my national security team, our military, and civilian leadership in Afghanistan, and our key partners.
And given the stakes involved, I owed the American people and our troops no less.
This review is now complete. And as commander-in-chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan."
Let's review: General McChrystal said,
“Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible,”
There is an obvious immediacy there and if Obama had spent five minutes in the military he would have known it meant sooner than later.
Delay is deadly in war and whether he and his people want to believe they didn't "delay" or "deny" help to our forces in Afghanistan, it's exactly what they did.
Given the plan he outlined, or rather lack of, it now seemed totally unnecessary. As to that plan - what little there is, it seemed as disjointed and as teleprompted/packaged as most of his speeches. It said all the words, but carried none of the passion fitting of a Commander in Chief. You could tell his heart wasn't in it and by the looks of the cadets they knew it too.
If you can't win the hearts and minds of our future leaders you're lost before you get started on the quest. It was quite telling.
On that point, note the way Chris ("Is telephoning Al Qaeda a crime?") Matthews, calls the venue for the speech - West Point - "Enemy Camp", and too notes the lack of leg tingles.
Half-rate musician (opinion of some of those he played with), Little Green Footballs, Charles Johnson, explains his mental delusions (why he thinks that the left is cool).
Other than that it's not much more than the fact that this video explains it all.
"The former vice president, Dick Cheney, has brought dishonor to himself, his office, and his country. I am not aware of another former President or Vice President behaving as despicably as Cheney has done in the ten months since leaving power, most recently but not exclusively with his comments to Politico about Obama's decisions on Afghanistan. (Aaron Burr might win the title, for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, but Burr was a sitting Vice President at the time.) Cheney has acted as if utterly unconcerned with the welfare of his country, its armed forces, or the people now trying to make difficult decisions. He has put narrow score-settling interest far, far above national interest."
Selective amnesia for sure.
Since we can consider Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, all of which haven't shut up or stopped criticizing Republican Presidents since leaving office.
When they spoke the uber liberal Fallows would say they "spoke truth to power".
Obviously he's selective on that belief as well.
For this he brings dishonor on himself and the profession of journalism.
