Climategate - the Infamy of the Lamestreet Media

Where is all the professional journalism on climategate? You would think that the mainstream media (from now on to be referred to as the lamestreet media) would be all over this.

The media hacks who have been cheerleaders for global warming propaganda and IPCC disinformation should be livid that they fell for this story; livid that they where duped.

They should also be livid at themselves for their lack of professionalism in not researching into the scam.

There has been ample resources on the Internet exposing the shaky science, but the vast majority of the lamestreet media has been behaving like groupies at a rock concert waving their panties on the air.

Following my report on the CBC earlier today, I did a quick Google search on some major news outlets today (Nov 30).

The Washington Post
The Washington Post only had 3 pages (one of them was just a duplicated reference) of these 3 pages, 1 was a blog entry asking why no climategate coverage, that left 2:

• Juliet Eilperin - made lame excuses and generally supported the phony global-warming science in her piece In the trenches on climate change, hostility among foes  

• Howard Kurtz - one letter on climategate near the end of a very long roundup Media Backtalk; Mr. Kurtz does not give justice to the letter and is somewhat dismissive. The entry is dated Monday, November 30, 2009 and yet Kurtz can only cite 2 entries at the Washington Post, here's the letter, from a gentleman in Kalamazoo:
  

from Kalamazoo, Mich: Mr. Kurtz,
It has been suggested that one way media show their bias is to diminish the importance of stories that don't fit the script, perhaps by burying them, or to ignore the stories altogether. Against that backdrop I find the coverage of the climate e-mails story (called in some quarters "climategate") quite revealing. These thousands of e-mails came from the English academy which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

Putting aside the question of whether global warming is real or not, or if it is, whether it is caused primarily by man or not, the e-mails appear to reveal a profound corruption of the scientific process. Of course, the very validity of scientific inquiry is based on the assumption that scientific processes are followed, and here it is beyond question that they were not.

And yet, at the same time the Obama administration stands ready to commit the country to billions of dollars in expenditures to "fight" global warming, the media largely appear to be dodging this story. Why?

Of course, it is possible that the science is valid. But if it were, why the need to suppress contrary views? Why the effort to ostracize scientific journals which published differing opinions?

The Post has penned several editorials which gloss over the issue. Can anyone in your shop not see what a failure this is on the Post's part? No sense of inquiry, no sense of healthy skepticism. Instead, just a complete buy-in to what may be bogus science.

Howard Kurtz:

I see two news stories about the e-mails in The Washington Post, as well as editorial and opinion pieces. So we have hardly ignored it. There was criticism of a NYT reporter who blogged that he wouldn't report the content of the e-mails because they had been obtained by hackers. This doesn't prove by a long shot that climate change is "bogus science," but it's a huge embarrassment to the scientists involved.

No Mr Kurtz, the Washington Post did not completely ignore it - but this is a huge story, but you can only cite 2 entries.

2 news stories is not much since the story broke at least 10 days earlier (there are reports as early as Nov 20, perhaps even earlier).

this is a huge story, but the Washington Post can only cite 2 news entries.

Hadley CRU was the premier source for climate data in the global warming world, with a huge budget to  research global temperature changes, it is up to the global warming theorists to prove the case, which they have not done to date. But when some of the principle scientists for the theories are caught lying and falsifying the data there should be some alarm bells going off in the media; the journalistic antennae of the reporters should be tingling with this massive story - but apparently they are not - not even mildly stimulated it seems.

...  it is up to the global warming theorists to prove their case, which they have not done to date

I think the point of the gentleman from Kalamazoo, Mich is proven by the reply of Mr. Kurtz - Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstrandum - "which was to be demonstrated").

Returning to Juliet Eilperin's piece thee ae a number of links to other climate stories at the end of her piece, but these were generally moderately or very favourable to global warming theories. From an article titled Hackers steal electronic data from top climate research center we see this reference: 

In one e-mail from 1999, the center's director, Phil Jones, alludes to one of Mann's articles in the journal Nature and writes, "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Mann said the "trick" Jones referred to was placing a chart of proxy temperature records, which ended in 1980, next to a line showing the temperature record collected by instruments from that time onward. "It's hardly anything you would call a trick," Mann said, adding that both charts were differentiated and clearly marked.

Ms. Eilperin gives Professor Mann the benefit of the doubt by publishing his explanation concerning the word "trick";  very commendable to give all sides of the story, but she fails to note that the word "trick" in the context of "hide" a trend in temperatures clearly shows intent to falsify the results so they looked btter from a global-warming point of view. Where was Ms. Eilperin's journalistic antennae?  

 But, as shown here on Lux et Veritas in the post: Climategate - It Had to Happen, Professor Mann's hockey stick graph was debunked by a paper in 2003 by Canadians Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. But the lamestreet media chose not to investigate but stick with Al Gore and Davis Suzuki.

As I said, there has been ample reason for suspicion of global warming theories, many reports from well-respected scientists, but the lamestream media chose to ignore them.

AMMENDMENT
I just found this piece which is a gold-star for the Washington Post - oh sorry it is the the Washington Times - ok Washington Post - no gold star for you - gold star  goes to ... The Washington Times.

Washington Times - The global-cooling cover-up


Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, Alberta

Climategate - Won't Go Away So Report it CBC

Are the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and the French Language arm RDI (Radio Canada) reporting Climategate?


What would your guess be? Would your answer be:

"Of course this is a huge story and this is a publicly funded media corporation committed to objective reporting - so of course they will report it"

Or would your answer be:

"I doubt it the CBC has been a devoted cheer-leader for the man-made global warming fraud for years, true to their liberal-leftist biases."

A Google search of "climategate" on the CBC site revealed three entries - that means there are only three pages on the whole CBC website with the word climategate.

One entry is buried in their technology section, and two entries from the CBC blog. Hmm that's very odd - the CBC does not have a front-line news story on this, so the only reporting is by way of their blog; at least we can be thankful that the CBC has a vestige of decency and did not suppress these two entries.

I like this comment post by a gentleman named Alan Forsythe

Okay we get it, the CBC has become the official spokesgroup for global warming hysteria.

Last week you did a drive by on Lawrence Solomon and promoted the message that there's a global warming cover-up. Yet we can't open a newspaper, turn on a radio or TV without hearing about global warming. And still, not a peep about climategate, wherein the so-called science is settled crowd admit their 'science' was never settled and that they have cooked the books.

I've listened to Suzuki talk and his message is much more about taking on the Conservatives than it is about environmentalism; he never mentions the Liberal Party's failure to pursue Kyoto goals when they were in government. His agenda is clear as is Gore's, who as others have mentioned, will soon be the first enviro-billionaire.

Many more have lined up at the gravy train or have joined the legions of useful idiots. But as the hysteria grows as we approach Copenhagen, most Canadians are deciding they don't want to be 'saved' by Gore and Suzuki and prefer their lives as they are now to lives led under the dictatorial hand of the UN.

The mainstreet media, or lamestreet media as I call it, is suppressing the story. It is not a side-show, governments are contempltating diverting trillions of dollars into useless programs, and the voting public needs to hear about the scam.

There is misinformation on the Internet, but at least one can sift through and find out what is happening, rather than relying on the lamestreet media.

With all due reverence: Thank God for the openness of the Internet

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, Alberta

Does the US Want Obama Health-Care Reform?

For Canadians the information has been somewhat distorted; I hear Canadians talking as though there is no safety net in the United States; that is not really true; they have Medicaid and Medicare.

Medicaid is available to certain low-income individuals and families  (see here)

Medicare is for people over 65 and some disabled people (see here)

Both programs are administered by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), both of which are generous programs and certainly not inferior to our general services here, possibly better.

Here's what the HHS says about itself:

The is the United States government's principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves.

My understanding is that there are other safety nets, programs and clinics; stories that people get turned away from hospital and die in the streets are not true.

Canadians also seem to be under the misapprehension that the Republican Party, or GOP (Grand Old Party) as it is sometimes called, does not want reform, but the Obama Government does.

That is incorrect, both the GOP and the Democrats are in favour of reform; the GOP had a 4-point plan proposed by Senator McCain, whereas the Democrats have tried to implement a "universal" or "socialised" health-care system in the past.

President Clinton put forward a plan in 1993, however the Democratic Party itself  offered a number of competing plans of their own, and the plan was declared dead in 1994 by Democratic Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, who is the current special envoy to the Middle East for the Obama administration.

But where do the American people stand in the issue? Here's the results from "Pollster.com".

We see that there is a clear margin of Americans who oppose the Obama plans over those who support it.

Oppose = 47.8%

Favour = 44.9%

A word about the approach used by Pollster.com .
 
They do not conduct their  own polls, but analyze the results from a number of other major pollsters to arrive at a mathematical representation of all the polls under consideration. It is like an average, but it is more mathematically rigorous than that, and uses techniques used in science and statistics to properly treat the data (such as linear regression, least-squares regression); Pollster.com explains their methodology here, and the full result can be found here here.

Both Parties Propose Reform

The Official GOP Plan can be read here, but it's more instructive to look at the commentary by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post from August of this year; his opening statement summarises the Obama plans:

In overhauling any segment of our economy, the 1986 tax reform should be the model. Yet today's ruling Democrats propose to fix our extremely high-quality (but inefficient and therefore expensive) health-care system with 1,000 pages of additional curlicued complexity -- employer mandates, individual mandates, insurance company mandates, allocation formulas, political payoffs and myriad other conjured regulations and interventions -- with the promise that this massive concoction will lower costs.

4-Point Reform favoured by Republicans (simplified)

1. Tort Reform
2. Real health-insurance reform
3. Health Insurance Across State Lines
4. Reduce fraud and waste in Medicare / Medicaid
   

1. Tort Reform: A significant portion of US health costs result from the huge awards by US Courts in malpractice suits. These awards result in much higher premiums than would otherwise be required, and forces doctors to practice overly defensive, and unnecessary, medicine to reduce the chances of litigation. Kruathammer calls it "an epidemic of defensive medicine that does no medical good, yet costs a fortune."

Tort reform has been proposed by the GOP for some time but it has been blocked by the Democrats because a significant part of their revenue comes from litigation lawyers; the Democrats will not embark on reform to avoid alienating their supporters.

Here's the extent of the problem:

An authoritative (study by the) Massachusetts Medical Society, found that five out of six doctors admitted they order tests, procedures and referrals -- amounting to about 25 percent of the total -- solely as protection from lawsuits.

Defensive medicine, estimates the libertarian/conservative Pacific Research Institute, wastes more than $200 billion a year. Just half that sum could provide a $5,000 health insurance grant -- $20,000 for a family of four -- to the uninsured poor (U.S. citizens ineligible for other government health assistance). 

This one area of reform alone could have a huge impact on US health-care, but the Democratic party blocks it to protect their support base.

2. Real health-insurance reform (see the whole discussion here):

Tax employer-provided health-care benefits and return the money to the employee with a government check to buy his own medical insurance, just as he buys his own car or home insurance.

There is no logical reason to get health insurance through your employer. This entire system is an accident of World War II wage and price controls. It's economically senseless. It makes people stay in jobs they hate, decreasing labor mobility and therefore overall productivity. And it needlessly increases the anxiety of losing your job by raising the additional specter of going bankrupt through illness.

So why doesn't the Obama administration reform it?

Repealing the exemption has one fatal flaw, however. It was advocated by candidate John McCain. Obama so demagogued it last year that he cannot bring it up now without being accused of the most extreme hypocrisy and without being mercilessly attacked with his own 2008 ads.

3. Health Insurance Across State Lines: the current laws prohibit competition across states lines. This adds costs by duplication, causes problems with portability, and greatly adds to costs by eliminating widespread competition ensuring that rates remain high. This approach has also has been previously blocked by the Democrats.

4. Reduce fraud and waste in Medicare / Medicaid: the Democrats have blocked reforms to address this also on previous occasions. But savings have been included as part of the CBO's (Congressional Budget Office) financial plan for Obama's reform. The question is why wait for a massive, complex new bill to reduce fraud and waste? Why not start action on reducing fraud and waste the day after inauguration?

Obama's Plan
The core of Obama's plan is to ultimately replace the the US Medical Insurance industry with a single-payer, government run and controlled plan.

Chief objections to this are:

1. Governments are inefficient and wasteful, (example Medicare and Medicaid) therefore this will result in far higher costs than from private companies.
2. Government will be taking over control of one sixth of the US economy; Government control of business is opposed by many Americans on Constitutional grounds
3. Many people think that their health is a private matter between them and their doctor, therefore the Government should play no part in it. People see this as another intrusion by the Government into their private lives. 
   
4. It will be massively expensive (estimates of 1 -2 Trillion dollars, but nobody really knows), and will not reduce costs, which was Obama's original reasons for reform . The actual costs are likely to increase far more than estimated, probably by a factor of 2 or 3 or more (example Maine)
5. Emphasis should be on other more urgent issues, jobs, the war in Afghanistan, Iran and the burgeoning US deficit
6. The bill itself is not being developed along bi-partisan lines, and this is causing some concerns not only to Republicans, but also to Democrats. Members of both houses feel that the way to produce pass such major legislation is along bi-partisan lines. That is, both Republicans and Democrats work together to forge a bill.
7. Coupled with the lack of bi-partisan input, is the concern that the bill is being rushed through, and that such a large piece of legislation, with such major impact to the US economy and the US people, should be given proper time for consideration, debate, development and finally passage into law. Without proper time this presents an unreasonable risk without a corresponding benefit to the American people. The reason for the haste is political.
8. A very real concern is the complexity of the bill, which exists in 5 different versions and some as long as 1,500 pages. Can the bill administered effectively once passed into law? Or will the complexity lead tp  problems with administering this bill

Finally, Obama promised for open government - that was a very big point in his campaign. Obama said he would introduce a new way of government. In reality this bill and associated negotiations, have been done behind closed doors.

It was requested that the bill would be made available on-line for an adequate period of time to review. This request has been denied; the reason given is that it would be too complicated and too time consuming to do it. This is laughable.

Will it pass? Congressional elections are coming next year and many Democratic representatives fear for their seats and are unwilling to back an unpopular bill, so it is going to be interesting to see how this develops. My own hope is that the final bill is not the socialised form of medical care, but contains the reforms necessary to increase efficiency and lower overall costs, all of which will be good for Canada.


Gurth Whitaker
Calgary AB

When Pravda Says It - You Know It's Bad

The polices of this US Administration are vitally important to Canadians.

When Pravda Says You Are Too Liberal - you know that things are bad.

The economics of the Obama administration are vitally important to Canada and the whole world, so when Pravda criticizes the economic "tax & spend" liberal policies of the US, it should be time to wake up.

The deficit in the US has tripled in the first year of this administration. It is now three times what it was when Obama took office.

Why worry say some liberals? Well the answer should be obvious: foreigners hold nearly half the $7.5 trillion U.S. public debt. That means that the American taxpayers not only paid a massive $383.4 billion dollars in interest charges during the Obama's first year, but fully half of that money went overseas, without any benefit to the US economy whatsoever. Money down the drain - out the window - just to maintain the debt where it is.

$383.4 billion dollars in interest charges over the first year of Obama's administration; that averages to almost $32 billion per month in interest charges. Not one cent of that goes to schools, health care, roads, or to paying the ever increasing government payroll.

The data is taken from the US Treasury here

That $383.4 billion dollars is money that comes from the tax-payer; money that doesn't go to buying homes, paying off mortgages, or buying goods and services that help build the US economy. But here is the worst part - fully half of it goes overseas.

You have to be an ostrich if that doesn't frighten you.

BUT, it is going to get worse, because the Obama administration want to increase spending even more. There is the energy bill, the Cap and Trade bill that will add billions in costs to the economy, which must be born by industry and private citizens - it will be a disaster. (Millions of green jobs? Does anyone believe that?) Plus there will be a massive increase in costs to the US taxpayer as a result of the proposed health care reform in is current form, which will result in a further restriction on growth and recovery.

Cutting taxes helps the economy; increasing taxes slows down and stifles the economy.

It has been shown in the past that the best way to stimulate the economy and create jobs is to cut taxes. A cut in employment tax for example, provides an immediate boost to industry, by reducing their costs. This produces a direct stimulus which acts fairly quickly. However, the current economic policy is exactly the opposite. That is why we should all be concerned; if the US economy falters the whole world will feel the effects. (Think of the huge amount of US aid that currently is distributed all round the globe; if the US economy is not strong how can they sustain this giving?)

The US with its massive spending is lagging the recovery of the rest of the world - not leading it. That should be proof enough. But tax and spend is at the heart of liberal dogma. It doesn't work but they are not about to let the facts get in the way of their liberal  ideology.

Where are the conservatives in Canada? We seem to be complacent up here.

If the US economy falls - we will be drowned in the tsunami.

"The American Self Immolation, Truly a Sight to See" from Pravda:

It can be safely said, that the last time a great nation destroyed itself through its own hubris and economic folly was the early Soviet Union (though in the end the late Soviet Union still died by the economic hand).

Now we get the opportunity to watch the Americans do the exact same thing to themselves. The most amazing thing of course, is that they are just repeating the failed mistakes of the past. One would expect their fellow travelers in suicide, the British, to have spoken up by now, but unfortunately for the British, their education system is now even more of a joke than that of the Americans.

While taking a small breather from mouthing the never ending propaganda of recovery, never mind that every real indicator is pointing to death and destruction, the American Marxists have noticed that the French and Germans are out of recession and that Russia and Italy are heading out at a good clip themselves.

Of course these facts have been wrapped up into their mind boggling non stop chant of “recovery” and hope-change-zombification. What is ignored, of course, is that we and the other three great nations all cut our taxes, cut our spending, made life easy for small business…in other words: the exact opposite of the Anglo-Sphere.

That brings us to Cap and Trade. Never in the history of humanity has a more idiotic plan been put forward and sold with bigger lies. Energy is the key stone to any and every economy, be it man power, animal power, wood or coal or nuclear. How else does one power industry that makes human life better (unless of course its making the bombs that end that human life, but that's a different topic).

Never in history, with the exception of the Japanese self imposed isolation in the 1600s, did a government actively force its people away from economic activity and industry.

Even the Soviets never created such idiocy. The great famine of the late 1920s was caused by quite the opposite, as the Soviets collectivized farms to force peasants off of their land and into the big new factories. Of course this had disastrous results. So one must ask, are the powers that be in Washington and London degenerates or satanically evil?

Where is the opposition?

Where are the Republicans in America and Tories in England?

 Where are the conservatives in Canada? If the US economy falls - we will be drowned in the tsunami.

Read the "The American Self Immolation, Truly a Sight to See" here


Gurth Whitaker
Calgary AB

Prophetic Words from George Washington

History Repeats Itself - Prophetic Words from George Washington.
 
I received this quote from a contributor – stunning in its relevancy for today... History repeats itself.