More on "those e-mails" about "Climategate"...

From "The Real News"...

Part One of Two:



Part Two of Two:

REVEALED: There IS no "Climategate"!

The Associated Press has read and re-read the 1,047 e-mails that were stolen (not "leaked" or "released" but STOLEN!) from the servers of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit.

Their findings? Lots of intellectual bitch-slapping, but no fraud or mis-truths.

To quote the article:

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.'"

Some e-mails expressed doubts about the quality of individual temperature records or why models and data didn't quite match. Part of this is the normal give-and-take of research, but skeptics challenged how reliable certain data was.

Read it here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34392959/ns/us_news-environment/

So, there you have it folks. No smoking gun, no evidence of cooking the books, no fraud. Just of a bunch of scientists who let their egos get the best of them.

And, yes, the planet is getting warmer. And we're the cause of it, despite what the denialists are saying.

Let's see if Alex Jones and his ilk will backpeddle on this one...

So, just for a wrap-up on what was meant by "trick" and "hide the decline", please watch the following video (9 minutes and 54 seconds well spent):

Now Fox Spins Lies In Print!

The Funhouse News Channel has decided to cast its web of lies in the Washington Post.

Read on:

"Rick Sanchez of CNN is tired of Fox News and their lies and he isn’t afraid to call them out on it. The fight is centered on the Tea Party Express and a new claim that Fox News has made stating that other news channels didn’t cover the event. In fact, this morning, Fox News unveiled a full page ad in the Washington Post that claimed ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN missed the story of the Tea Party Express; the protest that took place on September 12, 2009.

Many people can testify that they witnessed their local media networks cover the event, as well as those who know that they saw the coverage aired on all of the networks mentioned. The claim is preposterous and shows that the divide between Fox and other news media outlets is less likely to ever be bridged."

You can read the full article here (Courtesy of Examiner.com).

You can see Rick Sanchez's video here:

You also may be interested in another video of the rally where someone, presumed to be a Fox News producer, is caught coaching the audience (The woman in the green shirt standing next to the camera operator).

Two German Cargo Ships Sail Arctic Passage (Without Icebreakers!)

Gee! What happened to all that ice?

Two German merchant ships have traversed the fabled Northeast Passage after global warming and melting ice opened a route from South Korea along Russia's Arctic coast to Siberia.

Now the German-owned ships are poised to complete their journey through the cold waters where icebergs abound, heading for Rotterdamin the Netherlands with 3,500 tons of construction parts.

The merchant ships MV Beluga Fraternity and MV Beluga Foresight arrived this week in Yamburg, Siberia, their owner Beluga Shipping GmbH said Friday. They traveled from Ulsan, South Korea, in late July to Siberia by way of the Northeast Passage, a sea lane that, in years past, was avoided because of its heavy ice floes.

Scientists report that the Arctic Ocean ice cap has been shrinking to unprecedented levels in recent summers, because of global warming, opening up many passages that were ice-choked in earlier times.

In July, new NASA satellite measurements showed that sea ice in the Arctic was not just shrinking in area, but thinning dramatically.

Niels Stolberg, the president of Beluga, which is based in the German city of Bremen, called it the first time a Western shipping company successfully transited the Northeast Passage.

Read the full article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090911/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_arctic_passage

Or better still, watch this video by 2 The Ranting Gryphon:

WARNING: MAY NOT BE SAFE FOR WORK!!!!

Barney Frank Tells It Like It Is!

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) was asked a stupid question at one of those "town hall meetings". I love his reply.

Faux Marx

Just a brief note: There's a quote circulating the internet that is supposedly by Karl Marx and was supposedly in his magnum opus "Das Kapital", predicting the current comsumer credit crisis;

"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism."

There is no record of him ever writing that, and it doesn't appear in "Das Kapital". We've got enough problems without fake quotes from Marx and Nostradamus gumming up the works.

Thanks to the good people at Snopes.com for this one.

Fox "News" Caught Spinning Half-Truths... Again!

Thanks to Media Matters For America for this one:

Fox News Channel has been caught using both falsehood and cropped video footage to hype unsolicited e-mail claims.

"Even while asserting that he wasn't suggesting anything "nefarious" on the part of the White House, Fox News' Major Garrett did just that while recounting an exchange he had with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, in which Garrett relayed complaints from people who, according to Garrett, said they received an unsolicited email from the White House. Garrett based his report in part on the false claim that it was Gibbs who first used the word "list" in reference to people receiving the email, when in fact it was Garrett himself who introduced the notion of a targeted "list" of recipients -- as well as the actual word -- into the exchange."

Article and video are here.

Also, for the last time... there are no "death panels" waiting to unplug your grandparents from life support!

Jon Stewart Rides Again!

The Comedy Central superstar comes to the forefront once again with sharp comments on Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck. If it weren't so tragic, it would truly be funny.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
So You Think You Can Douche
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Finally! Congress refutes the "Birthers"!

From the Honolulu Star-Bulletin

The U.S. House of Representatives said happy birthday to the 50th State yesterday, peripherally stepping into the "birther" fray with a resolution that notes, "President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961."

While the resolution was considered routine, the national media picked up on the action because of attacks by fringe groups that do not believe Obama was born in Hawaii. Internet media services Salon and the Huffington Post ran articles.

The issue of Obama's birth certificate resurfaced last week when CNN commentator Lou Dobbs, in a separate radio program, raised the issue of whether Obama had been born in Hawaii and whether he is an American citizen. If he were born in Kenya to a Kenyan father, as some allege, his eligiblity for the presidency would be in question.

The House approved the resolution that was offered by U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a personal friend of Obama's father. Hawaii became a state on Aug. 21, 1959, and this year is the 50th anniversary.

The measure, House Resolution 593, passed without objection, with 378 aye votes and 55 representatives not voting. Voting in favor were 158 Republicans and 220 Democrats.

Also yesterday, state Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino issued a statement saying: "I have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barrack (sic) Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen."

It was the second time that Fukino issued a statement attesting that Obama was born in the state of Hawaii. State officials have said they are not allowed to produce Obama's actual birth certificate because Hawaii law forbids the release of birth certificates to those who do not have a tangible interest in the record.

It's been said that a symptom of insanity is performing the same action over and over, expecting a different reaction each time.

So, you conspiracists reading this, stop asking to see Obama's birth certificate. It's the same piece of paper you were shown before, and it proves he was born in Hawaii, and that his mother was a US citizen.

The "Accuracy" of Fox News

Thanks to the folks at Quatloos for pointing this one out to me.

A few weeks back, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was caught cheating on his wife on an alleged "hiking trip" on the Appalachian Trail (He was actually seeing his mistress in Argentina). Sanford is a Republican, by the way.

So how did Fox "News" depict him? As a Democrat!

Was this the first time Fox "News" did this, of course not! There was Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, who was caught in a sex scandal...

And back in 2007, when Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, was grilling Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, he must have been too much for the Republicans at Fox to bear...

So, let me see... They're Republicans until they get caught?

Pat Buchanan, Your Sheet Is Showing!

You can read the article here, but the "money quote" is:

"I think white men were 100% of the people who wrote the constitution, 100% of the people who signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country basically built by white folks.”

Watch the video here:

Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)

One of a kind, and a sterling example of television journalism at its finest.

1963 - Reporting the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy:




1968 - Reporting the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.




Emdebbing is not available with this clip, but you can see his February 27, 1968 editorial on Vietnam that brought him so much grief. Imagine one of today's newscasters straying from the official line today!

About that photo of Obama at the G8 Summit...

The "internets" is all abuzz over a photo that is being heavily promoted and talked about concerning President Obama supposedly gawking over the backside of a young woman at the G8 Summit.

Case in point is coverage from the Fox News Channel, Fox Nation and the Drudge Report. There has been a lot of website nattering over the photo, even after Fox News reporter Greta Van Susteren exposed it as a "misleading" photo.

Obama is simply pausing to let another woman walk down the stairs. You can see the whole video here, showing that is was French President Nicholas Sarkozy doing the leering.



Even the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post had to backtrack after it was exposed that the photo was misleading.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you have nothing to say, stop banging the table.

Yes, Alaska's glaciers are melting. There's a golf course to prove it!

From Impact Lab and The New York Times:

"JUNEAU, Alaska — Global warming conjures images of rising seas that threaten coastal areas. But in Juneau, as almost nowhere else in the world, climate change is having the opposite effect: As the glaciers here melt, the land is rising, causing the sea to retreat.

At low tide, it is possible (but messy) to hike across exposed mudflats around Juneau.

Morgan DeBoer opened a nine-hole golf course, above, at the mouth of Glacier Bay in 1998 on land that did not exist when his family settled in the area 50 years ago.

Mr. DeBoer figures he has picked up enough additional land since then to build nine more holes.

Morgan DeBoer, a property owner, opened a nine-hole golf course at the mouth of Glacier Bay in 1998, on land that was underwater when his family first settled here 50 years ago.

“The highest tides of the year would come into what is now my driving range area,” Mr. DeBoer said.

Now, with the high-tide line receding even farther, he is contemplating adding another nine holes.

“It just keeps rising,” he said."

The Climate Change "Smoking Gun" That Wasn't

From Media Matters For America:


Following allegations that the EPA "suppressed" an internal document that was skeptical of climate change, several Fox News figures have advanced the document's false claim -- previously repeated by CBS -- that, in Fox News host Steve Doocy's words, "for the last 11 years, temperatures had been dropping." In fact, Doocy's claim simply is not true.

A draft of the EPA document stated in one of its "principal comments" that "[g]lobal temperatures have declined -- extending the current downtrend to 11 years with a particularly rapid decline in 1907-8 [sic]." The document went on to state that "[g]lobal temperatures have declined (Figure 1a) -- extending the current run of time with a statistically robust lack of global temperature rise to eight years (Figure 1b), with some people arguing that it can be traced back for 12 years."

In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, annual global average temperatures have both risen and fallen over the past 11 years, and while there have been some relatively cooler years during that period -- including a decline in each of the past three relative to the year before -- climate scientists reject the idea that those temperatures are any indication that global warming is slowing or does not exist. Scientists have identified a long-term warming trend spanning several decades that is independent from the normal climate variability -- which includes relatively short-term changes in climate due to events like El Niño and La Niña -- to which they attribute the recent relatively cooler temperatures.

Of course, this didn't stop conspiracy monger Alex Jones from picking up this ball and running with it.

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly exposed as a liar by CNN's Rick Sanchez

Thanks to FoxNewsBoycott.com for this one.
From Friday, 5 June 2009:

It’s always great to see someone in the main stream media call Bill O’Reilly out on his lies, especially when it’s an absurd lie and there is absolute irrefutable proof. Take Bill O’Reilly’s comments about CNN not covering the Army recruiting center attack until Anderson Cooper featured it. O’Reilly had the audacity to state that CNN didn’t think of the tragedy as news and failed to report on it all day.

Rick Sanchez proceeded to play a montage showing CNN anchors and reporters discussing the incident all day.

“Let’s see, that was Kyra Phillips, Tony Harris, Heidi Collins, Lou Dobbs, certainly you saw myself, you just saw David Mattingly there, Wolf Blitzer, we saw Kiran Chetry, we saw Erica Hill — that’s nobody?” Sanchez asked.

“Let’s add this up together now,” Sanchez said. “We led with the story when it broke. We led with it again the next day. We analyzed the terrorism angle with experts and called former FBI agents to take us through it. And as a network, we covered the story umpteen times throughout the days, throughout all hours of those days. But Bill O’Reilly says he only saw it once. And since he only saw it once, well then that must be the truth. It doesn’t matter what really happened. It doesn’t matter what the record shows. All that matters is what Bill thinks he saw. We called Fox today, by the way. No response yet.”

The only thing Bill O’Reilly was correct about was calling CNN a “news channel.”

Waterboarding critic is convinced it's torture

(Thanks to The Young Turks.)

Eric Muller, aka "Mancow" (sort of a Conservative version of Howard Stern), originally laughed off the idea of waterboarding as torture, so he decided to have it done to himself on live radio.

The result:



He lasted six seconds. Quoting Mancow: "It's absolutely torture."

Glenn Beck, the "lying sack of dog mess"

In case you haven't seen or heard this, Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck had his butt handed to him by the ladies of the TV show "The View". This is just too good not to share...

The full article can be read at Newshounds.

The clip from "The View" is here:




For what it's worth, Beck's rebuttal, on Fox News Channel, is here:

Fox "News" caught re-editing a news clip

I'll just take this directly from Media Matters:

Summary: Fox News' Martha MacCallum claimed that "after weeks of economic doom and gloom, the Obama administration is now singing a slightly different tune. Take a look at what was said in recent interviews this weekend." Fox News then aired clips of administration officials purportedly giving an optimistic view of the economy, which included video of Joe Biden stating: "The fundamentals of the economy are strong." However, Biden did not make those remarks during an "interview[]" over the past weekend; he made those remarks at a September 2008 campaign event in which he criticized statements by John McCain.

You can read more and watch the video here. Apparently, there is no low that Faux news will reach to smear someone.

Jon Stewart tears CNBC a new one

Words don't do justice. Jon Stewart, host of the Comedy Network program "The Daily Show", takes CNBC (Consumer News and Business Channel) to task for Rick Santelli's faux outrage against President Obama's financial relief plans, and why the network was so blind to the coming signs of the financial collapse.

This was from the 4 March 2009 broadcast.



In case this video is down: try here.

You also may be interested in Jon Stewart's commentary on his report on David Leterman's show the very next day.

A bit of fresh air about James Hansen's "boss"

The deniers are at it again. "Outing" James Hansen's former supervisor, Dr. John S. Theon, as a global warming skeptic after his years of working under Al Gore.

This all goes back to a "news release" from the U.S Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works with a headline screaming " James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic - Says Hansen ‘Embarrassed NASA’ & ‘Was Never Muzzled’ - Gore Faces More Scientific Blowback".

A bit of examination is needed here:

First, the two men behind the article are Marc Morano and Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe. Let's check SourceWatch about them:

"Marc Morano is communications director for the Republicans on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Morano commenced work with the committee under Senator James Inhofe, who was majority chairman of the committee until January 2007 and is now minority ranking member. In December 2006 Morano launched a blog on the committee's website that largely promotes the views of climate change skeptics.

Morano is a former journalist with Cybercast News Service (owned by the conservative Media Research Center). CNS and Morano were the first source in May 2004 of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claims against John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election and in January 2006 of similar smears against Vietnam war veteran John Murtha.

Morano was "previously known as Rush Limbaugh's 'Man in Washington,' as reporter and producer for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show, as well as a former correspondent and producer for American Investigator, the nationally syndicated TV newsmagazine."

"James M. Inhofe has voted in favor of big oil companies on 100% of important oil-related bills from 2005-2007, according to Oil Change International. These bills include Iraq war funding, climate change studies, clean energy, and emissions.

On April 28, 2004, Inhofe was honored for his 'work in promoting science-based public policy' by the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy, a think tank that disputes the scientific consensus on the causes and magnitude of global warming. (The think tank has received $658,575 from ExxonMobil since 1998).

Asked in writing in 2004 by journalist Chris Mooney whether Inhofe agrees that he's at odds with the scientific mainstream, his committee staff retorted, 'How do you define 'mainstream'? Scientists who accept the so-called 'consensus' about global warming? Galileo was not mainstream.'

On September 28, 2005, The Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works held a hearing titled 'The Role of Science in Environmental Policy-Making'. Inhofe, the committee's chairman opened the hearing stating that: 'Today's hearing will focus on one of the three objectives I set out when I assumed the Chairmanship of the Committee – to ensure that regulatory decisions are based on sound science.Too often the environmental policy decisions made by EPA and other science-based agencies are driven by political or personal agendas. You see this in types of research that gets funded or the types of grants that get awarded. It is my hope this hearing will help shed some light on how science is used by policy-makers and that we can arrive at some concrete suggestions for making the process better.'

In 2003, the Natural Resources Defense Council noted that Inhofe 'scored zero with the League of Conservation Voters since 1997, was the only senator to oppose Everglades restoration, and once compared the Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestapo.'"

Next is the claim that Theron was Hansen's supervisor. He wasn't. He retired in 1994, a full decade before Hanson's claim that he was "muzzled". Quoting NASA’s Gavin Schmidt on RealClimate:

"Dr. Theon appears to have retired from NASA in 1994, some 15 years ago. Until yesterday I had never heard of him (despite working with and for NASA for the last 13 years). His insights into both modelling and publicity appear to date from then, rather than any recent events. He was not Hansen’s ‘boss’ (the director of GISS reports to the director of GSFC, who reports to the NASA Administrator). His “some scientists” quote is simply a smear - which scientists? where? what did they do? what data? what manipulation? This kind of thing plays well with Inhofe et al because it appears to add something to the ‘debate’, but in actual fact there is nothing here. Just vague, unsubstantiated accusations."

More info here at Climate Progress.

Nice try guys, when you don't have any facts to speak of, please stop pounding the table.

"I'm as mad as Hell..."

450 words from the classic 1976 film "Network" that has been set to dramatic music and put in animated typography by Aaron Leming ("geek180" on YouTube).



These words ring truer today than when they were first spoken by the fictional newscaster Howard Beale (In a posthumous Oscar winning performance by actor Peter Finch).

The cost of Obama's inauguration

Okay, here it starts. Obama hasn't even been sworn in yet, and already there are half-truths flying about stating how much the inauguration is costing as compared to Bush2's.

According to the "reports", Obama's inauguration will cost as much as $150,000,000, while G.W. Bush's cost only $40,000,000... or course, that's only if you don't include security and transportation costs incurred by the US Gov't and Washington DC itself... which ARE included in Obama's $150M estimate. (source)

To quote Media matters: "buried in a recent New York Times article published one week before the controversy erupted over the cost of Obama's inauguration, the newspaper reported that in 2005, 'the federal government and the District of Columbia spent a combined $115.5 million, most of it for security, the swearing-in ceremony, cleanup and for a holiday for federal workers'."

Yes. $115,500,000 for GWB's 2005 inauguration. (source)

I'm afraid we're going to see LOTS of nonsense like this for the next four, perhaps eight, years.