Why the desire to pull the troops out of Iraq in the first place?

*posted first on Friday Feb. 10, here*

In the Australian today:

NO sooner did President Barack Obama welcome home American troops from Iraq and laud that country’s stability and democracy than an unprecedented wave of violence across Baghdad and elsewhere revealed the severity of Iraq’s political crisis.

Unfortunate, yet hardly surprising, even to the most casual of observers.

And whilst I can understand (yet not agree with) the Left’s position not to send troops into Iraq in the first place – an argument, largely moot, for another day – what I don’t understand is their fervish desire to pull the troops out.

It always smacked of idealism, ideology, rather than hard-nosed practicality.

After all, what was so bad with having a US troop presence there to help maintain Iraq’s fragile democratic stability?

One could argue that I am biased because a) I am centre-right politically and b) because I live in South Korea, a nation that has had a US troop presence – some 37,000  28,000 or so currently – since the armistice between North and South Korea and have seen what a permanent US troop presence looks like.

I am happy to accept those labels and can gladly tell you that such a presence ain’t that bad.

By and large,  US bases in Korea – and Japan for that matter – haven’t been a problem.

Sure, issues pop up from time to time, but if one looks at the big picture, then a strong US presence here can only be seen as a good thing, a safe option, a pretty darn good insurance policy against North Korea trying anything major on.

Almost 60 years we’ve had US troops over here without any major problems. In fact, many major problems (a full-scale Nork attack comes to mind) have arguably been averted thanks to this presence.

So, why the rush to leave Iraq essentially free of any US military  before even a decade is up and before, as is clear now, the job is done?

OK, so perhaps it’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges. US troops in Korea, aside from those stationed at the DMZ, aren’t on active duty as they were in Iraq.

However, it’s not a completely dissimilar situation. Perhaps a good analogy would be to compare mandarins and oranges.

US troops not only provided safety and stability in the fledgling democracy that is Iraq – a country still steeped with sectarian and tribal rivalries – but surely they also provided a deterrence to anybody or any groups who want to destabilise the nation.

What takes years to build can take mere seconds to destroy, and I fear a lot of hard work is being undone on the whim of a flawed, feel-good, ideology.

So why?

The only practical reason that I can see for Obama pulling his troops out of Iraq is that with an Iranian confrontation looming which includes action needed in Syria, Iraq frankly isn’t important enough any more or at best, an impractical option for a potentially over-stretched military.

Of course, Obama – a man of the progressive Left – can’t actually come out and say that but it is reasonably well-known to those who don’t just get their news from the MSM that Obama is actually more of a war-time president than Bush was, having committed more troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and for a longer period of time.

So whilst the MSM might play along with the “bringing the troops home” narrative, the evidence indicates this simply isn’t the case.

Some 20,000 marines, seamen and air crews from half a dozen countries, a US nuclear aircraft carrier strike group and three US Marine gunship carriers are practicing an attack on a fictitious mechanized enemy division which has invaded its neighbor. It is the largest amphibian exercise seen in the West for a decade, staged to simulate a potential Iranian invasion of an allied Persian Gulf country and a marine landing on the Iranian coast. Based largely on US personnel and hardware, French, British, Italian, Dutch, Australian* and New Zealand military elements are integrated in the drill.
Bold Alligator went into its operational phase Monday, Feb. 6, the same day as a large-scale exercise began in southern Iran opposite the Strait of Hormuz. This simultaneity attests to the preparations for a US-Iranian showdown involving Israel behind the words on Feb. 5 of US President Barack Obama (“I don’t think Israel has decided whether to attack Iran”) and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 3 (“The war itself will be ten times as detrimental to the US.”).

(*BTW, I don’t recall Aussie PM Gillard highlighting that one.)

And this:

As the US and Israel carried on bickering over the right time to strike Iran’s nuclear sites, their war preparations continued apace. debkafile’s military sources report that flight after flight of US warplanes and transports were to be seen this week cutting eastward through the skies of Sinai on their way to Gulf destinations, presumably Saudi Arabia, at a frequency not seen in the Middle East for many years.

Add into this mix reports that China will reportedly help Saudi Arabia build a nuclear bomb, and that both China and India have started paying Iran for its oil in gold thus helping thwart current US/UN sanctions (more of which were recently thwarted by Russia and China), then we see a stage set for a showdown and we see the reality that rhetoric aside, Obama won’t be bringing many troops home at all.

To someone who doesn’t know any better, it’s as if Russia, India, and China – all wannabe first chickens to the trough – are ganging up on America.**

PS Who wouldn’t love to be a fly on the wall listening in to what the US is really saying about China? Their ever-expanding use of soft power is in many ways, stuffing it all up for America. China must surely be becoming an ever-increasing pain in the neck.

This leaves Australia in an interesting position. Our main export partner is China. Our main ally is the US. We send China our goodies to help them get rich and rival America. We practice shooting our guns with America to help keep America on top.

And yet China and America are also so deep in each other’s pockets. America buys China’s goods. China buys America’s debt.

Fun times.

** I highly recommend reading The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom. Part of the book talks about the pecking order of nations.

Where’s Big Counterjihad When You Need It?

Over at Gov and Vlad Tepes a call has gone out for assistance. The remarkable Fjordman is in somewhat straightened circumstances, so a few of us are helping put the word out for him. He hasn’t had a blog of his own for years, although that has not stopped his productivity. What did slow him down, however, was the Norwegian gunman Breivik naming him (among others) as being a bit of an inspiration*. I personally think that Breivik’s ‘manifesto’ is a load of tripe. Breivik talks of christianity, say’s he’s not one, and yet gets wheeled out as being a fundamentalist christian. As someone who is into Extreme Popery, I call bullshite. In the meantime, and along with everything else, Fjordman has now pretty much lost everything – job, home, country. I’ve got a cat he could have, but that’s no use when there’s nowhere to keep it. He does have a few (for him) words over at Vlad’swhich I’ll paste here:

Hello from Peder Jensen alias Fjordman. I will continue writing under one name or the other and hope to publish several books in the next year and a half, but after the Breivik case in Norway, which I got mixed up in against my will, I no longer have a job and I am also moving out of my old flat in Oslo, which I already left weeks ago. There are always some costs involved in moving to a different location and creating a new life somewhere else. If you have enjoyed some of my essays in the past I would be grateful if you donated a few bucks this time. Think of it as a Fjordman Relocation Fund. Just mark the donations as being for me and I will get it via Vlad’s fine website. Thank you, and thank you for all the support and kind words I get from long-time readers. Peder

This is not quite a twilight bark – more a twilight blog. *very interesting review of Breivik’s ‘manifesto’ by someone of the left-persuasion. I’m not sure she’s read the Reliance, or the hadiths or the Hedaya, but that’s only to be expected. A few weeks with HuT might help her with a few things. Like the fact that muslims believe that sharia law is Allah’s Law for all men for all time, so whether she agrees with it or not is irrelevant. That’s not conspiracy theory, neither is it conspiracy that a man has been hounded out of his home for writing some hard-hitting essays that focus on the Decline and Fall of Western Civilisation. We’re just not supposed to mention the islamists because we’re not allowed to hurt feelings. Please check out the post over at VladTepes, and if you can donate money to assist Fjordman, please do. If you can’t, then linklove and prayers are most welcome also.

crossposted at rightwingdeathbogan.

Agreed, Jill Singer: the nonsense has to stop

Jill Singer supports a carbon (dioxide!) tax. Unfortunately, she shows a complete ignorance of the real science behind the politics.

THE “debate” over a carbon tax in Australia has become high farce.

Indeed it has. The Left seem to think that taxing the bejesus out of a trace gas will somehow save a planet that doesn’t need saving. Jill and her ilk fail to realise CO2 is only a minor greenhouse gas at that. It makes up only 0.04% of our atmosphere. Most of it is natural. The sceptical side has man-made CO2 at 3% or about 0.001% of our atmosphere. The alarmist side puts man-made CO2 at ten times higher. But so what? That means man-made CO2 would occupy 0.01% of our atmosphere.

There’s no way Man’s small contribution to a minor greenhouse trace gas – yet an essential gas, most of it naturally occurring – can be the main driver of climate. That hypothesis is, to use Jill’s words, a “high farce”.

Read more of this post

Downer calls for Taliban negotiations

At first glance, this is a particularly unpalatable notion, but perhaps the Realpolitik of the situation warrants such a change of strategy.

THE initial objective of the invasion of Afghanistan has been achieved and it’s time for a diplomatic settlement involving the Taliban and their Pakistani creators, says former foreign minister Alexander Downer.

In an article entitled “Our messy war” published in The Spectator ahead of the parliamentary debate on Afghanistan, Mr Downer said the initial military goal was to destroy al-Qaeda’s capacity to use Afghanistan as a base for attacks on the US and other western targets.

“That goal was achieved. Al-Qaeda was destroyed in Afghanistan. As time has passed there has been mission creep,” he said.

Mr Downer said the task now was apparently to improve the quality of democracy and security, but that was proving perilously difficult as Afghanistan had never been competently governed by an administration based in Kabul.

However, on the one hand we see reports of a decimated Taliban having endured a near decade-long “arse-kicking”. Their best commanders are either dead or captured and what’s left is literally a rag tag army.

Thus, why negotiate now? Rather, seizing the jugular (g’day, reader Carpe Jugulum ;-)!) would appear to be the more effective option in the long-run.

But then there are the reports of a wishy-washy US president who even after an Iraqi-style troop surge- which has arguably been a success, just like in Iraq – still appears to not really know what to do.

American Spectator’s Alfred S. Regnery:

Afghanistan is often called the “graveyard of empires.” It is also Barack Obama’s Achilles’ heel. He has nobody to blame but himself.

Afghanistan has little strategic value and the war is one of choice rather than necessity. Now, at the end of a wasteful and frustrating decade, our objective is to end the fighting and leave a measure of stability behind. But clarifying even this simple goal seems more than the Obama administration can handle.

That’s probably why Downer is calling for a deal. Regnery’s piece goes on to remind us that Afghanistan, hardly a nation, is but really a collection of tribes, rooted in the middle ages, and certainly not a prime candidate for nation-building.

Still, something doesn’t sit right. Even with Al-Qaeda taken care of over there, what’s to say they wouldn’t re-emerge – and quickly? A deal and/or pull-out would likely inspire Islamic terrorist forces around the globe. And just how much could you expect a “legitimised” Taliban to keep up their end of any bargain?

The Australian parliament is set to debate the Afghanistan War this Tuesday. Yet with the major government power-broker, Greens’ leader Bob Brown, not even having been there, it seems folly to have this debate just now even if both, generally speaking, the ALP and Liberals are committed to the war.

You’d think the best course of action would be to head the advice of the generals on the ground. Bob Brown flies in the face of this, however.

“We have to take what our army commanders are saying into account here but then I have letters from relatives of troops who are in Afghanistan or going to Afghanistan who do not want their loved ones sent to what they see as a hopeless war,” he told ABC Television.

A US debate over what step to take next is scheduled for December.

Faced with a White House war review due in December and decreasing public support for the war back home, the U.S. military is not in a position to hold back. The current phase of operations is geared to make a statement: drive the fight as aggressively as possible and rout the Taliban in their own backyard. Looking forward, commanders posit that improved civilian freedom of movement and a stronger government presence will be reliable gauges of progress. But it remains to be seen just what metrics will be enough to convince the Obama Administration that serious money and manpower should be poured into a conflict now entering its 10th year.

Whatever the powers-that-be decide, now is a good time for Western forces to strike hard while the iron is hot. One reason is purely military in nature: the Taliban is at its knees. The other reason is purely political in nature: Obama and other Western politicians appear to be at their knees.

A deal with the Taliban?

Picture source: Taliban feud over murder of Polish hostage


cross-posted

The latest terror round-up

Let’s start off with Tony Blair noting that the war on terror has left too many Muslims thinking we’re out to get them. Of course, that’s not the case, but is it really such a surprise the West is taking a closer look at Islam in an effort to understand why so many terrorists are Muslim?

We note that two Israeli soldiers have been convicted of using a Palestinian boy as a human shield. Does the same kind of scrutiny occur in the Palestinian territories when their folk do the same (and on a much larger scale)?

And speaking of pricks who use civilians as human shields, it’s good to hear the Taliban, thanks largely to the surge and all our fine soldiers, is “getting an absolute arse-kicking”. Indeed, they’ve been decimated.

Evo Morales birth control method.

My isnt Evo “Ive never lost a game of soccer” Morales a stroppy little piece of crap when he looks like loosing?

Lets face it, a short tubby guy claims hes NEVER been on the losing side of a game of soccer? pathological liar I think is the term used.

So how does El Presidente act when he receives a rough tackle during a “friendly”?

A knee to the nutbag, then whines to the ump about his sore leg. Result? The bloke with the testicular trampolines is sent off. Takes real chutzpah to attack another player in a foul way, then whine to the ump AFTER youve assaulted him.

Look for yourself.

Full story here at the Daily mail.

EU threatens the UK.

Read this article and see if the EU seems a little less than….friendly when they arent allowed access to a nations funds. 

Europe tells Britain not to ask for help in a crisis 

   

Officials from both euro and non-euro countries said Britain should not ask for help if it runs into trouble because it had not signed up to a £378 billion support fund. 

French, Swedish and many Brussels officials have predicted that it is only a matter of time before Sterling is hit by the same market turbulence that came close to destroying the euro at the weekend. 

An EU spokesman, yesterday.

 

Shades of the piranha Brothers there, “Nice currency you’ve got there Guv, pity if my hammer should accidentally slip and smash it eh”? 

Jean-Pierre Jouyet, a former French Europe minister and the current chairman of France’s financial services authority, yesterday predicted only “God would help” a rudderless Britain after it snubbed its euro zone neighbours. 

“There is not a two speed Europe but a three speed Europe. You have Europe of the euro, Europe of the countries that understand the euro … and you have the English,” he said. 

Yes damn those English for not spending their money to bail out our currency!! 

“The English are very certainly going to be targeted given the political difficulties they have. Help yourself and heaven will help you. If you don’t want to show solidarity to the euro zone, then let’s see what happens to the United Kingdom.” 

So Mr frog would like the shaky coalition leading England’s first financial move to be a massive bailout of the EU’s currency? Would he like their first born children as well droit de signer over their wives perhaps? 

But despite supporting a rapid response EU financial “mechanism” to the tune of £13 billion, Britain declined to offer another £50 billion of loan guarantees in order to help “European partners” that get into trouble. 

   

13 Billion pounds pissed up the wall already, plus England running a deficit of 1/2 a billion pounds a day, Im sure they are falling over themselves to save the Euro…. 

Germany’s cabinet yesterday opened a political battle after it approved a new £106 billion German contribution to the EU bail-out, a sum which is over five times larger than last week’s deeply unpopular payout of £19 billion to Greece. 

   

Any one want to guess how many seats this will cost Merkel? 

The controversy over Greece cost Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, her government majority in regional elections on Sunday and the latest EU cash demand has threatened to tear her government apart. 

“We want the details,” said Otto Fricke, a budget spokesman for Mrs Merkel’s coalition in the parliament. “Where will the money for the EU’s first instalment come from, if and when it comes? There are many ifs and buts.” 

 

So the money is to be just given to Brussels for them to use?  FFS this will see the disintegration or impoverishment of the EU if it allows it to go ahead. 

The German press has reacted with fury after Mrs Merkel cancelled popular tax cuts in order to pay for the new EU bail-out burden on German taxpayers. 

“Europe’s jerks once again!,” declared the headline on yesterday’s front page of Bild, Germany’s biggest-selling newspaper. 

   

If I was Poland Id be nervous about now, grumpy Germans have never been a good omen for them in the past. 

Heres Businessweeks take on the crisis. 

“Europe’s jerks once again!” ran the headline today on the front page of Bild, Germany’s biggest-selling newspaper. “750 billion for bankrupt neighbors, but tax cuts canned,” it said. “It’s beyond belief!”

Iran to “punch” the West on Thursday

Tomorrow, Thursday, will be the 31st anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution (oxymoron, anyone?). And they reckon they will “punch” West “in a way that will leave [us] stunned“. What exactly this “punch” will entail, no one really knows, but it probably won’t amount to much, as is the norm when Iran bleats defiantly. Shaking in ma boots.

Now if only China would stop selling them weapons and whatever else, we could impose some more effective sanctions on them. China’s veto power at the UN currently prevents us from doing that. And, of course, the commies are thirsty for energy.

Cross-posted at bing’s cubby house.

UPDATE

Was this the punch??? Suspending gmail??

Devastating…

Brown/Coakley round up

Some awesome blogger did this bloody good post on the whole shebang. Check it out!

What would China do?

If you remember the post a few days back showing Al Gore being confronted in a bookstore, you may remember the ‘confrontee’ screaming out that the COP15 climate change crap has, rather than having much to do about the environment, and not just on Obama’s own admission, a security issue, but also rather a lot to do about eugenics, that favourite play toy of the Left. And sure, we’ve already heard about eco-ratbags suggesting governments ‘put something in the water’.

Well, Canada’s Financial Post, in an editorial no less, has made their stand… for a global one-child policy.

A planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.

Interesting since it ain’t the rich countries having that much of a problem with exploding populations. In fact, two of the richest nations on the planet, Japan and Germany are actually experiencing negative population growth.  It’s the poor countries that are much more likely to have huge population growth. Look at that list in the link above. Take the top 30. It’s only poor and/or Muslim countries experiencing growth of about 2.5 or higher.

The FP’s stance is idiotic at best, and down right evil at worst. And how the hell would you police such a policy except in the developed world? That’d be a world which isn’t having a problem with exploding populations – no pun intended re countries experiencing problems re suicide bombers…

But the FP is trying to do what China would do, and is taking China’s lead.

COPENHAGEN: Population and climate change are intertwined but the population issue has remained a blind spot when countries discuss ways to mitigate climate change and slow down global warming, according to Zhao Baige, vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (NPFPC) .

“Dealing with climate change is not simply an issue of CO2 emission reduction but a comprehensive challenge involving political, economic, social, cultural and ecological issues, and the population concern fits right into the picture,” said Zhao, who is a member of the Chinese government delegation.

So we have a bunch of lefties taking the lead off a bunch of Commies? Gee, what could go wrong with that in a free, democratic society?

Obama accepts Peace Prize, defends war

Gotta love the hypocrisy of the left. No wonder he didn’t stay around for long. And the Norweigans are plenty ticked off about it. But it seems not ticked off enough to not be completely lame.

But he skipped several other activities, including lunch with the king, a news conference at Oslo’s Grand Hotel, CNN’s traditional interview with the prize winner and a “Save the Children” benefit concert, where organizers replaced him with an Obama cardboard cutout. Obama also won’t be around for Friday’s Nobel Concert.

A poll reckons he got the prize too early anyway.

All this is made even funnier when one considers that nearly half of Americans said they would prefer Bush back! Now that’s saying something.

UPDATE

Meanwhile, the world’s largest Muslim nation, Indonesia, has decided to erect a gold statue of Obama as he was as a boy. Quite fitting since he spent so much time being educated there.

UPDATE II

Climate change is now a secrurity issue? But of course. 😉

H/T Drudge

US Citizen? Sign the petition against cap n’ trade

If you’re a man-made global warming sceptic, or if you think the science perhaps isn’t settled, or if you are worried about a potential communist world government, or if you are worried about giant non-sovereign world taxes being imposed on all of us, or if you think the governments of this world already have too much power, or even if you’re not convinced yet either way, and don’t want a road paved that there’s no turning back on in just two short weeks, then sign this petition.

SIGN HERE

People literally right now are speaking at Copenhagen presenting the other side to this man-made CO2-driven man-made climate change/global warming argument. They will also be speaking tomorrow. Time is of the essence.

UPDATE

This post differs from the original. It came from watching the latest Monckton videos (the end of Part 4 of which part 1 was posted by 1.6 below), about a GLOBAL problem – but unfortunately only US citizens can sign that petition. Hence, first update removed, replaced with this.

Copenhagen: Climate Sense Conference

This is one of the first conferences of the COP15 junket summit, and it’s prime objective will be urging UN members (and everyone else there) to have open minds about this debate. Although Climategate has essentially proven that climate scientists, politicians, journalists, and the UN don’t have an open mind about climate change and it’s many causes, well, at least this Climate Sense Conference is taking place at all. It begins at 8pm tonight, Tizona time (same as Sydney and Melbourne) and runs until 2am Tizona time. It will continue at 8pm Tizona time on Wednesday and wrap up at 1am, er, Tizona time.

*Note: They mixed up the date on that link. It should read Tuesday, December 8, not Tuesday, December 7.

It’s brought to you by this mob, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and that link has lots of great additional stuff related to Christopher Monckton, Climategate, and Copenhagen et. al..

In case you missed it yesterday, Lord Monckton, along with Professor Fred Singer, and Professor Ian Plimer, will be speaking at that conference.

Also, in case you missed this over at Bolt’s, Tim Wilson of Sustainable Development is actually over in Copenhagen and will be blogging about it. Might be a good place to go to get up-to-the-minute info.

UPDATE

Better late than never. From December 1, MIT’s professor of meteorology, Dr. Richard Lindzen, argues that the science isn’t settled in the following summary…

Is there a reason to be alarmed by the prospect of global warming? Consider that the measurement used, the globally averaged temperature anomaly (GATA), is always changing. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes down, and occasionally—such as for the last dozen years or so—it does little that can be discerned.

Claims that climate change is accelerating are bizarre. There is general support for the assertion that GATA has increased about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the middle of the 19th century. The quality of the data is poor, though, and because the changes are small, it is easy to nudge such data a few tenths of a degree in any direction. Several of the emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have caused such a public ruckus dealt with how to do this so as to maximize apparent changes.

Copenhagen schedule

A silver lining…

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Monckton, Fred Singer, and Ian Plimer will be speaking. Bad news is that they’re speaking right at the beginning and could well be forgotten by the end. Good news is that nothing much is likely to come out of this, with no actual agreements until June next year or even until 2011.

Let’s hope “our boys” get a fair hearing and their message gets through over, say, Desmond Tutu’s call for cash.

Schedule.

And with trepidation, a link to an article quoting Lord Monckton. Do read the whole enchilada, but since the following has been largely passed over, here’s an excerpt reminding us what this AGW crock means for our food.

Speaking about replacing one third of agricultural land which grows food to be used for growing bio-fuels instead, Christopher Monckton reminded that it has led to double food price surge over just one year.

“If we have to pay twice as much for our food – it’s inconvenient. If you are in a poor country – that difference of a 100% in the price of your food is the difference between life and death,” he warns.

More.

UPDATE

In related news, have you heard about the steel cages being set up for any protesters who are arrested?

Powerline asks: What do they think we are, anarchists?

Will Lord Monckton throw Molotov cocktails, or Pat Michaels smash bank windows?

Not science just climate science

Not Evil Just Wrong’s, Phelim McAleer – and if you don’t have the DVD yet, it’s the best 20 bucks you could spend – rips apart Climategate.

Al confronted at bookstore

No prizes for guessing what happens next.

With thanks to Sheila, the lovely receptionist at Paco Enterprises.

Monkton’s book: Climategate: Caught green handed!

Yes, many other bloggers have linked to it already, but it’s that important, nobody should miss it.

A must read.

UPDATE

Iowahawk’s explanation of how data was massaged.  And no, he’s not being satirical this time ’round, but quite serious.

UPDATE II

Yet another idiot with his head in the sand. Either that or… do the math. Reckons <strike>we’re</strike> they’re half-way there in regards to striking a deal in Hopenchangen. And it’s Lord Stern, climate advisor to the UK goverment – apparently an “expert” according to ninemsn – saying it!

Copenhagen: And all this is to save two lousy degrees. Whoop-di-doo.

Welcome to the Planet, “Sol Mond 3”

Does this look like a photograph taken on Earth?

Well, it was. You simply must check out this series of inside-the-tube wave photos. Absolutely amazing.

Here is the star that “Sol Mond 3” orbits.

I think the seas on Sol Mond 3 are filled with silicon gel.

Climate Rage: The Bottom Has Fallen Out of Copenhagen

The continuing saga of Climategate has finally dropped both boots on Copenhagen, as The Times of London has pronounced the gathering a funeral.

“Exactly a fortnight from today, the United Nations climate change conference opens in Copenhagen. Its purpose is (or was) clear: to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012…

Mr Brown’s Copenhagen objective will, happily, not be achieved…

[T]he scientific basis for global warming projections is now under scrutiny as never before. The principal source of these projections is produced by a small group of scientists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), affiliated to the University of East Anglia.

Last week an apparent hacker obtained access to their computers and published in the blogosphere part of their internal e-mail traffic. And the CRU has conceded that the at least some of the published e-mails are genuine.

Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals…

[W]hat is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British Government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay.

It is against all this background that I am announcing today the launch of a new high-powered all-party (and non-party) think-tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (www.thegwpf.org), which I hope may mark a turning-point in the political and public debate on the important issue of global warming policy. At the very least, open and reasoned debate on this issue cannot be anything but healthy. The absence of debate between political parties at the present time makes our contribution all the more necessary.”

UPDATE: Viscount Monckton weighs in.

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

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

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

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

I am angry, and so should you be.”

Read the whole enchilada.

UPDATE II: Senator Jim Inhofe (R- OK) wants The United States Senate to investigate “Climategate”:

“Today, I will discuss something else – scientific integrity and how to improve it. Specifically, I will discuss the systematic and documented abuse of the scientific process by an international body that claims it provides the most complete and objective scientific assessment in the world on the subject of climate change – the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.”

Listen to his call-in to a conservative talk radio show.

“Now that was four years ago; so we knew they were cooking the science back then…”

The cat is out of the bag, and he’s pissed.

ClimateGate… Booyah!

Just in case you’ve been living under a rock the last day or so…

Hacked alleged emails between some of our “top” climate scientists have revealed collusion, manipulation of data, suppression of data, deletion of data, team efforts to sideline skeptics ie. anyone who’s research didn’t fit the man-made global warming narrative…

Bolt’s booyah here, here, here, and here.

Blair’s booyah here.

Jules’ booyah here (lotsa good links on that one).

An excellent round up here.

Where it all began here.

HotAir’s take here.

A few tidbits have even made it to the MSM. Interesting since this is potentially the biggest news story since 9/11. At least James Delingpole’s excited.

Check it out for yourself here, or search the emails for keywords here – with thanks to anelegantchaos.

Gavin at RealClimate is having a hell of a time defending it all.

Naturally, Anthony Watts was on to it early.

I won’t link to ClimateAudit. Steve’s site is taking a beating.

In fact, it’s all over the blogosphere. With something potentially, if proved right, so serious, that will affect billions of people and dictate where trillions of dollars go, and yet where there are whiffs of conspiracy, collusion, manipulation, suppression and deletion of key data, why on Earth isn’t this all over the news channels?!

UPDATE

It’s even on Yahoo Answers. The longer the MSM stays essentially silent on this, the more they mute their relevance.

UPDATE II

Slowly, slowly, they might just be coming round. This is just too big to suppress.

Link (puff).

Link.

Link.

H/T Bolt who notes, “I suspect this is a story that newspapers should not entrust to their environment reports.”

UPDATE III [Beef]

Keep and eye on Power Line also, as John has latched his analytical legal mind onto this subject, and when he decides to get to the bottom of something, the bottom better be afraid… very afraid.

“The biggest news story of the day is one that has barely begun to break and will continue to reverberate for months or years to come. Someone hacked into a computer at the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climatic Research Centre, one of the main centers of anthropogenic global warming research. The hacker downloaded 62 megabytes of data from the server, consisting of around 1,000 emails and a variety of other documents. He uploaded them to an FTP server, where they were available to the public, apparently, for only a few hours. The event is described here.

Before the documents disappeared from that location, several people had downloaded them and posted them in other locations. I downloaded all of the material earlier today and have begun to review it. The emails are stunning. They are authored by many of the leading figures in the global warming movement: Michael Mann, James Hansen, Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, Stephen Schneider, and others. They are remarkably candid; these individuals talk to each other with the knowledge that they are among friends.

The emails I’ve reviewed so far do not suggest that these scientists are perpetrating a knowing and deliberate hoax. On the contrary, they are true believers. I don’t doubt that they are sincerely convinced–in fact, fanatically so–that human activity is warming the earth. But the emails are disturbing nonetheless. What they reveal, more than anything, is a bunker mentality. These pro-global warming scientists see themselves as under siege, and they view AGW skeptics as bitter enemies.”

Read the whole enchilada. Warministas are fundamentalist dead-enders, just like Jihadists.

 

UPDATE IV

BOOYAH! Bolt goes in for the kill. Talk about a boys’ club!

O-bow-ma

Oh for fuck’s sake.

Of course, the Chinese are calling him, Oba Mao.

It’s not the first time he’s done this, either.

Jesus Christ. I’m glad General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur isn’t around to see this.

Mac’s Thought Bubble: “Fuck me, a leftard shit-head president.”

Paying Unassimilated Muslim Immigrants to Leave

The tide has shifted. Even many liberal-left Democrats are beginning to tire of government enforced, “cultural diversity” when the subjects in question are Muslim immigrants who refuse to assimilate, and do nothing but breed on the dole and threaten their hosts with violence… and often enough, act out on those threats.

Sweden, a country I love – OK, I really love the women – and have lived in, is paying the return trip for asylum seekers who have been turned down. Note that the countries listed are all Muslim countries, that a higher percentage are now being refused, and that applications are also dropping as the people back home get word that the public teat is running dry.

Denmark is going that one better, as they are paying unassimilated Muslim residents about $20K US to… ahem… get the fuck out. The something that is rotten in Denmark is the unassimilated Muslims, and the natives want them gone.

Expect this to spread. Peace-loving citizens of western nations – who will readily self-identify as libertarians if the terms are properly defined for them – are fed up with this malignant ideology parading as a religion, and they bloody well want their countries back.

Here in the US, the solo terror attack by Nidal Hasan is being called a terror attack in newspapers that were formerly allergic to the word. Deniers are being shouted down, and even their hearts aren’t into their arguments anymore.

Not only that, but there are now calls for the abjectly ridiculous Clinton-era gun ban for military bases and posts to be rescinded. This is major big progress. I grew up a military brat on Air Force bases in the 60’s and 70’s: My dad carried a .357 revolver around with him whenever he was flying, and nobody ever gave it a second thought. It’s a military base for fuck’s sake! Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines are supposed to be fucking goddamned ARMED! Expect this to change, and soon. Even lilly-livered generals don’t like to be caught with their pants around their ankles while their unarmed soldiers are mowed down by lunatics.

There will also be an end to this kind of malfeasant shit. Hasan’s superiors wondered if he was a bleeding psychotic nut-case, but nobody wanted to take the heat for accusing a Muslim of being a danger. A hearty fuck that to that noise. That’s gone soon as well, and three cheers.

Westerners are long-suffering because we’re civilized, and we’d like more of the world to share in our prosperity and standard of living, but if you invite a dog into your house and he refuses to stop shitting on the carpet, well, you’ll rid yourself of the cur sooner or later, no matter how much you wish he’d shape up.

That’s what’s happening now: Muslims have been shitting on the carpets of western countries too long, and the owners of those carpets are tired of cleaning up after them. We’d like to walk on those carpets barefoot without worrying about stepping in a pile of Muslim shit.

Perhaps in another few centuries Muslims will be ready for civilization, but they aren’t now.

Send them back to their bat-shit filled caves and their flea-infested sand dunes. That’s where they belong.

Let the Muslims shit on their own carpets.

Man-made CO2

Anthropogenic CO2 – around only 5% of all CO2 – runs at about 15 ppm – that’s fifteen parts per million or 0.0015% – of the earth’s atmosphere. How batshit crazy do you have to be to think that reducing that 0.0015% will make even the slightest difference to average global temperature, especially when you have that big orange ball in the sky – our sun – constantly changing its output? Let alone changes in the earth’s orbit and wobble, and natural changes in ocean temperatures.

And yet Copenhagen is barely more than a month away. Potentially lots of money for some but certainly not for us.

And back in Australia, Rudd still wants to impose a massive job-killing tax on everything and everyone. A massive tax because Australia produces about 1.5% of total global man-made carbon dioxide output. Yes, that’s 1.5% of 15 ppm – 0.0000225% of the atmosphere.

Astounding. And insidious.

Having trouble vizualizing those numbers? Here’s a good vid to help out.

Divide the smaller of the two amounts of red rice by about 65 and you’ll get Australia’s contribution. Yeah, that’s right. Time to break out the HD plasma.

And just in case you haven’t seen this yet.

UPDATE

There’s a new study out suggesting even Neptune might play a part in climate change on Earth.

The point is this: with so many variables that we likely don’t fully understand – sun, oceans, orbits, wobbles, cosmic rays, possibly even the other planets now, and most probably a whole host of others we don’t yet know about, all going about their various cycles and cycles within cycles – to go to all this bother and consequent pain (if Al Gore et. al. get their way) all over a piddly amount of man-made CO2 is utterly, utterly ridiculous.

H/T Reader Greg over at Bolt’s palace.

Is Democracy not for everyone?

First reaction: bullshit.

Anyway, the BBC via Australia has launched into a bona fide debate on it all. Interesting….

Obama gets in. China’s rich. And now we’re questioning democracy… lest we mention who Obama’s press secretary admires so much.

And a note on that. Dunn said it. It’s on tape. Yet try to google a news story about it from a major news source? Almost nada. Why is that? Because a close aid to Obama, his communications director, quotes Mao as her number 1 political idol?

Oh dear, America. Oh dear, England. Oh dear, Australia.

And whatever happened to the fourth estate?

Not Evil Just Wrong

Only five days to go. Pay up. Type QUADRANT into the coupon box to get a 10% discount.

Bob Carter:

In contrast to this small (and still hypothetical) risk of damage from human-caused climate change, there exists a certainty that gross socio-economic damage is already resulting from global warming activism, and is set to get worse.

Merv Bendle:

The accelerating moral panic about alleged global warming and its projected catastrophic effects is a fundamentally religious phenomenon. Despite its pretensions, it is not primarily about science. Rather, it represents the emergence of a new religious movement (an NRM, or what used to be called a ‘cult’). This new form of eco-fundamentalism is characterized by a widely excessive faith in science, a hatred and despair at Humanity, an intolerance of opposition or even skepticism, and a near hysterical form of secular Apocalypticism.

The director, Phelim McAleer:

Spain believed the hype about environmental regulation creating “green jobs” and boosting the economy. Now 18 percent of Spaniards have no jobs. Our own country – Ireland – has the Green Party in government who are pushing for a “carbon tax”. This will increase the price of every good and service on an island that is enduring 13 per cent unemployment. The increased costs will drive out jobs during one of the worst recessions in living memory.

A similar fate awaits Australia if it follows Europe’s lead. Eighty percent of Australia’s energy comes from coal, and the country exported $45 billion worth of it last year. Tens of thousands of jobs in the energy sector are at stake if Parliament adopts ETS to cap carbon dioxide.

Oh, and just in case.

UPDATE

David Flint:

In any event …i t is becoming increasingly evident that support for the fundamentalist global warming agenda is soft. Indeed the BBC now concedes there has not been any evidence of global warming since 1998, notwithstanding the increasing amount of carbon emissions. That’s why the fundamentalists are trying to change the name of their secular religion to climate change.

Once the electorate understands the massive impact on their lives of an ETS, and the fact that it won’t affect global carbon emissions [nor global warming, nor climate change – bing], they will obviously reject it. In 1998, the promise of the GST almost brought down the government. This was a far more benign, almost harmless substitute for other taxes including those ones curiously found invalid by the High Court.