As freedom and individuality are crushed throughout the Middle East under the weight of Sharia law, Barack Obama opts to bow and grovel at the feet of Islamic dictators with whom he seeks to “build bridges.” Comity with such people is paramount. In contrast, human rights abuses among the common people of those regions are inconsequential. Or worse, as was the case in Iran after thug leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad secured his electoral victory through highly dubious means, the concerns and complaints of the people become a distraction and hindrance to Obama’s fawning diplomatic overtures, at which point he turns a blind eye to the mass state oppression of their dissenting voices.

On this side of the Atlantic, things are rapidly deteriorating towards the same dismal condition. And it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Administration has no interest in upholding or protecting the basic rights previously enjoyed by Americans, as evidenced by Attorney General Eric Holder’s willingness to allow voter intimidation by New Black Panther members in Philadelphia to go unpunished, despite incontrovertible evidence of their criminal actions. The definition of “crimes” and any resulting government involvement in pursuing them as such will henceforth be determined by their potential for gaining liberal political advantage and not by some simplistic and blind devotion to justice.

As an inevitable result, Americans increasingly find themselves subjected to third-world style injustice, including false accusations of wrongdoing based not on the written law, but on the twisted premises of “political correctness,” which will ultimately overshadow any effort to restore fairness and integrity to the legal system. The latest effort by the Obama White House to humiliate and impugn the good people of Arizona, this time on the world stage, cannot be interpreted in any other manner.

Were the United Nations merely feckless and inept, the monstrous sums of money bestowed to it by the United States government would still be indefensible. Yet over the years it has degenerated into something far worse than a mere roundtable of babbling “diplomats.” Corruption and hypocrisy run rampant in its midst, with emissaries from brutal and corrupt dictatorships often chiding the civilized world, and the United States in particular, over supposed infractions of imaginary standards of decency in dealing with the human condition.

The arrangement was abhorrent in the past, as U.S. presidents attempted to deflect such criticism while maintaining what they vainly believed was the proper degree of American support and presence in the organization. But with the advent of the Obama Administration, the situation has grown far worse. Now, instead of defending the United States against this gaggle of leftist and their third-world nattering, Barack Obama invokes their disdain as a means of debasing this nation, thus validating their accusations and condemnation.

His latest betrayal of the nation came with the State Department’s submission of its “Report to the UN Council on Human Rights” on August 27. In this document, the Administration attempts to make the case that its opposition to Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 constitutes an effort to restore human rights in the Grand Canyon State. Conversely, the effort by Arizona to stem the invasion of illegal aliens from Mexico must be presumed as an infringement and abuse of those rights.

Reality has long ago been driven far from the entire illegal immigration debate. Whereas throughout the rest of the world, flagrant and horrific abuses of human rights have occurred against oppressed citizens at the hands of their own imperious governments, which have often forcibly and violently prevented them from escaping from their control, the ostensible “victims” of the Arizona law are attempting to unlawfully enter and remain within the purview of this nation, facing at worst, the potential for eviction from its borders.

In Obama’s despicable world, America is no longer a nation with legal boundaries, put in place to preserve and protect its assets and its culture for the ultimate service of its own citizens. Instead, it is merely an accumulation of ill gotten material wealth, which should be rightly distributed amongst those who covet a portion of it. To deny anything to such people, on any basis is, in the thinking of Obama and his leftist minions, to violate their “rights.”

Nowhere in this discussion is any consideration given to the fact that each fragment of America being doled out to an illegal invader was first produced though the toil and industry of the people of the nation. Obama’s “compassion” and “generosity” amount to a pillaging of those resources from the people who forged and built the nation and now seek to pass its blessings on to their posterity.

Efforts by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to protect the lives and property of the good people of her state are, in reality, no infringement whatsoever on the “human rights” of law abiding people. And in fact, they are the surest guarantee that all future legal citizens of Arizona, or any state in this nation, whether immigrant or natural born, will benefit from the opportunity to thrive and flourish in a safe and wholesome society, free of the encroaching dangers of a burgeoning subculture with neither a reverence for its heritage nor a concern for its future.

In contrast, Obama’s latest betrayal of Arizona and the United States is not the behavior of a sincere patriot who holds any serious regard for his oath of office. Rather it is the sordid conduct of a committed leftist and his political minions who maintain no allegiance to the nation or respect for its institutions and integrity, and who regularly demonstrate their intentions to undermine and ultimately eradicate it.

By now it has become grimly obvious that their despicable actions will continue unabated until “We the People” decide that we have had enough, and correct the mistake of ever having so cavalierly allowed such unworthy and malignant individuals access to the hallowed reins of power.

This video interview was released just days after the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Will this information help clear his name and the work he has done against illegal immigration?

Is it a coincidence that Sheriff Joe was cleared in an ICE investigation prior to the November 2008 election and then targeted for an investigation just months later after Obama and Janet Napolitano took office? It is no secret that Napolitano did not like Sheriff Joe. Now with the power of the Secretary of Homeland Security did she abuse her powers in office to target Sheriff Joe?

Illegal immigration is a huge problem in Arizona, with sections of the state off limits to US citizens. The Obama administration’s response is to file lawsuits against Arizona for passing SB1070 and against Sheriff Joe. They further insult Arizona and the United States by submitted a report to the United Nations alleging human rights violations based on Arizona’s immigration law. This law is based on federal law that has been in place for many years. Now it becomes an issue because a state enacts the same law! Something is very wrong.

It is the federal government’s legal responsibility to secure our border, yet they continue to leave it open, posts signs warning US citizens of the dangers caused by the invasion of Mexican drug cartels in the state of Arizona. If we had a president who was truly concerned about national security and the invasion taking place on the southern border, instead of putting up signs he would be sending out the military to take back our lands that are being stolen by Mexico.

Sheriff Joe and Jan Brewer are doing what they can to fight this invasion from Mexico and the assault by our own federal government. We are behind them!

The Barack Obama administration has sided with the world against Arizona. That’s essentially what he did when the United States State Department referred the Arizona immigration law to the United Nations Human Rights Council for review.

So first Obama has his Justice Department sue a sovereign state for seeking to uphold existing Federal immigration laws, and then he submits the law for international review by a committee on civil rights that boasts China, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Tunisia and Egypt as members.

You know, those countries that make dissidents disappear into the bowels of gulags — if not graves — that demand its women stay covered from head to toe, that imprison political prisoners without trial, that mutilate women’s genitals, that forbid women from being in the company of men that aren’t blood relatives or their husband, that beat or stone criminals and that persecute Christians. Yeah, those countries.

That begs the question. Just whose side is Obama on?

Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher waves to a crowd of supporters at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Cleveland on Tuesday, May 4, 2010. Fisher beat Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner in a primary election for the Democratic nomination to fill the Senate seat of retiring Republican George Voinovich. (AP Photo/Jason Miller)

In another sign that the electoral environment has become dire for Democrats, Republican Senate candidates in the battleground working class states of Ohio and Pennsylvania have begun to build big leads in the last few weeks over their opponents.

Republican Rob Portman’s polling lead in Ohio over Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher has grown from an average of 1.8 percent in mid-August to 6.7 percent, as of Thursday evening. Just in the last week, Portman has gained two points in the Real Clear Politics average.

And in Pennsylvania, former Republican Congressman Pat Toomey has gone from just 2 points up on Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak in mid-August to now being 8.5 percentage points ahead. Like Portman, Toomey gained two points just in the last week.

The signs in Ohio and Pennsylvania are in concert with what is happening in more Democrat-leaning states, such as Washington and Wisconsin, where Democratic incumbents Patty Murray and Russell Feingold look increasingly endangered. Murray is actually trailing Republican Dino Rossi by 2.3 points in the RCP average, while Feingold’s lead over businessman Ron Johnson has been whittled down to 1 point.

Republicans would need to pickup 10 Democratic seats, while losing none of their own, to take control of the Senate.

Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, on Thursday moved his prediction of Republican pickups in the Senate from 7 to 8 or even 9, and said a GOP takeover of the Senate is looking more possible by the day.

“Conditions have deteriorated badly for Democrats over the summer. The economy appears rotten, with little chance of a substantial comeback by November 2nd. Unemployment is very high, income growth sluggish, and public confidence quite low,” Sabato wrote.

In the House, estimates are also reaching new highs for how many seats the Democrats could lose. The Cook Political Report estimated this week that 70 Democratic-held House seats are at “substantial risk” of being lost. Republicans need to pick up 39 to take the House.

Sabato said the GOP has a “good chance” of picking up 47 seats.

One element that could potentially help Democrats in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Fisher and Sestak have lost so much ground in recent weeks, is organized labor. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka announced an advertising and door-knocking blitz that is set to begin in earnest this weekend.

In an interview, AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman named Ohio and Pennsylvania as two of the six states where labor will make its most concerted push to turn out voters for Democratic candidates, citing built in advantages of large union constituencies. Ohio, for example, has 2.2 million union members, out of a state population of 11.5 million.

The other states where organized labor will have its biggest presence, Ackerman said, are California, New York, Illinois, and Nevada. The fight to reelect Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, will be particularly fierce, she said.

“We need to do whatever we can to get him elected,” Ackerman said.

Trumka said that he did not think that electoral trends were set in stone, and that their money and boots on the ground would make a difference, despite the fact that the dynamic for Democrats has done nothing but worsen in the last few weeks, and despite a mixed track record that includes a futile union attempt to influence the special election to fill Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts, where Republican Scott Brown won.

“We’re not getting in the game late like we did in Massachusetts,” Trumka said.

I know that they only think of this as the second stimulus bill. After all the recently signed $26 billion spending bill was just a “jobs” bill and this stimulus really is about something different than jobs, right? OK, I am just confused. This is also a jobs bill, but the previous jobs bill was not a stimulus bill.

The Obama administration is mulling a raft of emergency fixes to stimulate the economy before the midterms, including an extension of the research and development tax credit and new infrastructure spending, according to several people familiar with the situation.

Administration officials have been huddling almost continuously during the past week, brainstorming for ideas that would boost employment without hiking the massive federal deficit – with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner rushing to the West Wing for further consultations late Thursday.

The White House press office on Thursday refused to say how much a financial package might be, other than to say it won’t be a “second stimulus.” But the administration will have a tough time selling nearly any package to terrified, Obama-phobic Hill Democrats who increasingly blame the president – and his ambitious, expensive legislative agenda – for their dismal prospects this November.

The meetings, which had Obama huddling with his economic advisers twice in the last seven days, have yielded no specific proposals. But he’s given the team a priority: find ways to pay for as many of the ideas, mostly tax breaks, as possible without a deficit increase, an administration official told POLITICO.

The R-and-D tax cut, which Congressional Democrats have already considered would, for example, be paid for by closing overseas corporate loopholes.

But party leaders were dubious that even a modest, targeted spending bill could pass muster at the height of an anti-tax, anti-deficit, Tea Party-fueled Republican resurgence. . . . .

In the opinion of usurper president and U. S. Constitution destroyer Barack H. Obama, there is no legitimacy in any state to seek its own protection from foreign invasion with its concurrent and resultant damage to life, limb and property.

The Preamble to the Constitution lists the requirements of the federal government to our nation’s security.  One of those requirements is to “provide for the common defense.”  This is one of the responsibilities granted to the federals by the states.  If the feds can not or will not ‘provide for the common defense’, it is only reasonable that the state or states will have to do it themselves due to the abdication of responsibility by the federal government.

This is the situation in Arizona.  Hordes of illegal aliens have been coming across the federally controlled and unprotected borders; Obama and his inefficient Attorney General and Chief of Homeland Security with their malfeasant and contrary to law refusal to act in accordance with our Constitution’s mandates, do unnecessarily place the legitimate citizens of Arizona and the United States, in serious jeopardy.

The only recourse for the Arizonans is to reclaim the responsibility for the provision of the common defense for their own protection.  An analogy would be when parents abandon their children leaving them unprotected and predators seeing this try to move in and harm the children and take over their home.  The children are physically and mentally mature enough to fight off the offenders and do so in order to prevent even more serious injury or death at the hands of the law breakers.

Days later the parents return and they see the children had to defend themselves against illegal alien attackers; what do they do; berate the children for protecting themselves because it was not what they were supposed to do even though they, the parents, weren’t there to do it?  I rather doubt that would happen as the parents would be so thankful the children weren’t hurt they would be joyous and promise to never leave them unprotected again.

However my friends, this is not how the Constitution is interpreted by the type of un-American creatures that inhabit and attempt to control our nation in this Administration.  Using the same analogy as above, Obama and AG Holder would have the kids arrested and charged with disobedience of government orders.

Obama proves over and over again his absolute disdain for our Constitution and his deep hate for our country.  His every speech contains at least one derogatory comment about the United States, and an equal amount of how great is the world of Islam.  And there are some people who just can’t see the truth for all of the lies that come out of his mouth.

Now, even once totally conservative icon Ann Coulter is beginning to show signs of support and alibi-making for this Muslim-loving, Christian-hating son of Allah who seldom misses an opportunity to praise that religion while ignoring the Christian faith of more than three-quarters of all American citizens.  She recently stated that Obama was not a Muslim but that he was an atheist.  To that I say that she must not have heard Obama tell how wonderful and uplifting the sounds of the early morning prayer of Muslim that rings like music in your ears; or words too that effect.

If that man isn’t a Muslim, it sure appears that he would like to be.  I am not in possession of any secret information that proves he’s of that faith; but where he lived in Indonesia which is I believe, almost totally Muslim and went to a school where you had to be a Muslim to attend, sort of gives me the idea that he is a Muslim.  Don’t know about you Ann, but I’d bet the ranch on it.

Coulter also derides the efforts of the many millions of people in this country that question Obama’s lack of natural born citizenship due to an absence of any REAL and legitimate proof; not including forged and not even legitimate ‘short-form’ documents that are easily obtained with little or no factual information.

But getting back to the usurper-in-chief and his henchmen who are going all out to protect foreign governments and causes like Palestine and Hamas and Imams who want to build Mosques in the shadows of where some sons of Allah killed 3000 Americans, while at the same time trying his damnedest to crucify a bona-fide, good old American state for crimes that they haven’t even come up with yet, probably hoping that they can expel them from our country.

If I had my way, Obama and his corrupt, and taxpayer money thieving bandits would be the first ones to go.  They have such unmitigated gall to have the rottenest Attorney General ever in our history file charges against Arizona for passing a law to give the state the protection that the federal government is responsible for maintaining but does absolutely nothing.

And for their latest thing is, they have gotten the broad-beamed bimbo of the Clinton team, Madam Hillary, to file charges against the state with, can you believe it, the United Nations???  When ever has this country’s president had his number one accomplice ask the United Nations to consider charges to its Human Rights Commission?  The United Nations; without question the most corrupt group of individuals who condemn anything and everything the United States does and yet keeps its hands out looking for more graft and US taxpayer dollars.  They are as contemptible and worthless as a presidential czar looking to put the screws to senior citizens’ health care.

The feds claim in their case against Arizona that the new law calls for racial profiling.  That state is overrun with a very dangerous bunch of illegal aliens, of which 90 plus percent are all of one race, gender and nationality.  Now how can they be accused of racial profiling when EVERYBODY that is trespassing is of the same ilk?  Proving once again; Obama is out to get Arizona no matter how often the lie is told.  What a pitiful bunch.

And finally we get to probably the one person, other than Governor Brewer, who Obama and his rogues would dearly love to injure, the inimitable, courageous and valiant Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  From even before Obama took office and named his lowlife miscreant Cabinet and Czars, he wanted Arpaio taken down.  Even now Joe is still riding high fighting illegal immigration, but Holder and the DOJ are yet preparing to get him out.

You ain’t done yet Joe; don’t budge for those louts.

For those who believed politics was involved in the decisions in the car industry, it appears that Mr. Rattner’s new book will provide a lot of information. So much for Obama’s promise not to let politics interfere with how the companies were run.

-When Obama was told of the plan to pay GM CEO Rick Wagoner a $7.1 million severance package after Obama ordered that he be sacked, Rattner writes: “Suddenly I felt that I was indeed in the presence of a community organizer…”

-Rattner describes presidential political adviser David Axelrod coming to car meetings armed with poll data to support the takeover and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel identify Congressmen in whose districts large Chrysler facilities were located.

-”[Obama's economic team] veered dangerously close to having the government take control of the two most troubled banks, Bank of America and Citigroup.”

-”If his team had linked arms with the outgoing administration, as President Bush’s advisers had proposed, billions of dollars could well have been saved.”

-Rattner says Chief of Staff Rahm Emanual dictated Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s schedule, public appearances and staff selections.

-He says Obama economic advisers Larry Summers and Austan Goolsbee and FDIC Chair Sheila Bair as enemies who slowed down decision making with infighting

-Rattner said Obama was frustrated with the auto companies from the start: “Why can’t they make a Corolla?” he has Obama asking.

Astute Bloggers has the scoop, and it is big. See New York Times, “New York Poll Finds Wariness About Muslim Center.” (And click the image for the full survey.)

The most amazing thing here to me is that a full 69 percent of those polled approve of President Barack Obama’s job performance, but an almost equal number disapprove of the Victory Mosque at Ground Zero. Seriously. Is there possibly a more powerful statement on how far outside the mainstream are the netroots terror-enablers and the al Qaeda apologists in the elite ranks of the Democratic Party? New Yorkers obviously know WTF is going on. They even give Mayor Bloomberg strong majority approval, but clearly, liberal New York thinks Imam Rauf’s Mosque Monstrosity is an abomination. Even more pathetic, but no surprise, is how the editors at New York Times diss their city’s own residents. See, “Mistrust and the Mosque.” According to the Solons of the editorial suite, “it is appalling to see New Yorkers who could lead us all away from mosque madness, who should know better, playing to people’s worst instincts.” Appalling? Who, really, has the superior instincts here? Shoot. It’s just common sense NOT to erect a Conquest Mosque at the site of the worst attack on the continental U.S. And it’s not like the reputations of the Wayward Imam and Lying Miss Daisy have improved throughout the increasing uproar. I mean c’mon, critics are beneath anti-Semitic eliminationism? Well no, obviously (and sick for the suggestion). Folks are simply asking mosque backers to think again, to be considerate. The Times poll even finds 72 percent agreeing that backers indeed have the right to build. So who really in all of this is outside the mainstream of American tolerance? This is why Americans hate the leftist elite, in the media, the party system, the universities, and in the diversity shakedown industry of the corporate world. Common sense is demonized in America today. But folks can see November from their kitchen windows, and things do look promising on the political horizon.

Jerry Cope

Designer, Filmmaker, Environmental Writer, Eco Activist

Even as BP and US government officials continue to declare the oil spill over at Mississippi Canyon 252 and the cleanup operation an unqualified success, for the first time blood tests on sickened humans have shown signs of exposure to high levels of toxic chemicals related to crude oil and dispersants. Some of the individuals tested have not been on the beaches, were not involved in any cleanup operations or in the Gulf water — they simply live along the Gulf Coast. Several of them are now leaving the area due to a combination of illness and economic hardship. As the media’s attention has moved on and the public interest wanes, the suffering and hardship for people along the entire Gulf Coast of the United States from Louisiana to Florida continues to worsen. While BP and the government are scaling back cleanup operations and distancing themselves from legal liability for the environmental destruction, economic hardship, sickness and death resulting from the largest environmental disaster in our nation’s history, the situation continues to deteriorate.

The use of the Corexit dispersant 9500 and the highly toxic 9527 by BP, with the approval and assistance of the US Coast Guard and EPA, has been the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism. Never before has such a huge quantity of the toxic compound been used anywhere on the planet. Most countries including NATO allies ban it’s use and will only grant approval as a last resort after other methods have failed. Britain has banned its use altogether. The NOAA provided extensive information summarizing other nation’s policies in regards to Corexit after Senator Barbara Mikulski demanded the information from EPA administrator Lisa Jackson during congressional hearings in July. While the dispersant serves to break down crude oil on the surface and thus makes the oil invisible from the air, it is highly toxic and bioaccumulates in the marine food chain. In humans it is a known carcinogen and its use was widely condemned after Exxon/Valdez and the horrifying health effects on the populations exposed to it there. As it evaporates and becomes airborne, the toxic compounds have moved on shore, creating health impacts that, although apparently large from the numbers of people affected, the full extent is unknown. BP and the US government have effectively been performing the largest chemical experiment in history on a civilian population without their knowledge or consent.

Dispersant and crude in Gulf

Within two days after arriving in the region in mid-July, everyone on our team began getting sick. After our first day out on the water with Captain Lori of Dolphin Queen Cruises touring the lagoons around Orange Beach, Alabama, we all had extreme headaches. During our boat tour, dispersant was visible covering the water everywhere. That evening I developed a gagging, coughing reflex that was so intense and persistent it was impossible to speak to my daughter on the phone. The symptoms typical for high levels of chemical exposure such as burning, itching eyes, constantly runny nose, chronic coughing, burning sore throat, chest congestion, and lethargy progressively intensified. Over the next several weeks these symptoms continued to worsen until I developed chemically-induced pneumonitis. Before leaving the area I had blood tests initiated to determine if the levels of exposure were high enough to be be detected. The musical activists Sassafrass and the tireless efforts of Michelle Nix allowed myself and several local residents to have blood drawn and tested by Metametrix for chemical exposure. Project Gulf Impact and the Coastal Heritage Society have also contributed greatly to air and water testing in the Gulf region affected by the spill. Project Gulf Impact has set up a dedicated medical help phone line at 504-814-0283. It has proven extremely difficult to find medical care providers who are willing to see patients who have been impacted by the oil spill due to the tremendous pressure exerted against hospitals, clinics, and physicians by BP. In numerous cases BP has provided financial payments to institutions and individuals in exchange for them agreeing not to allow their physicians or staff to see, advise, or treat anyone sickened as a result of the well blowout.

I spoke at length with Michael R. Harbut, MD, MPH, who is clinical professor of Internal Medicine and director of the Environmental Cancer Program at Wayne State University’s Karmanos Cancer Institute. Board Certified in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Harbut was Chair of the Occupational and Environmental Health Section of the American College of Chest Physicians, was Medical Coordinator of the Kibumbe Refugee Camp during the 1994 Civil War in Rwanda, where the death rate for patients under his care was 1/3 that of the remainder of the camp and was Chief US Medical Advisor to Poland’s Solidarity during the Cold War. His research has been published or presented in venues ranging from the New England Journal of Medicine to the White House.

JC: I wanted to speak with you and see what you thought of the test results we got back. As you know, some of the locals actually came back even higher than mine.

MH: First you have to remember the setting — this is New Orleans and the Gulf Coast; there is a history and a context in which things need to be placed. In my specialty, which is occupational and environmental medicine, there are not many of us who are board certified who actually take care of patients. The bulk of the physicians in our specialty are medical advisors or medical directors to large corporations, and many have never met a chemical they didn’t like. Sort of like Will Rogers. Part of the context is there is a physician whose name is Victor Alexander who was a specialist in my field. He worked in New Orleans at the Oxnar clinic and was seeing a lot of patients who worked for the petroleum companies and was reportedly fired for all of the work he did for his patients as opposed to the petroleum companies — what a doctor is supposed to do. So Victor Alexander then goes into private practice and the New Orleans police came and arrested him for robbing a bank.

JC: Seriously?

MH: Yea, it gets way crazier. This is a guy who was doing very well personally, economically — it came out in trial that he had a half a million dollars in the bank and was making plenty of money. It is unlikely in terms of motive that he would rob a bank for 2,500 dollars. The video from the bank was analyzed by the retired chief of criminal identification for the FBI; he said there was no way it could have been Dr. Alexander robbing this bank. He went to trial twice, the judge threw out a lot of evidence that would have exonerated him and he was sent to prison for robbing a bank. The Louisiana State Medical Society refused to take away his license. Many physicians who do work or potentially could do work or have knowledge of the area in New Orleans know the story about Victor Alexander. The message is quite clear: Don’t mess around with the petroleum industry.

JC: I have been working mainly in the Orange Beach/Gulf Shores area of Alabama, and that’s where I got sick.

MH: Have you had a CAT scan?

JC: Not yet, although they want to do one at the National Jewish Respiratory Center in Denver.

MH: You have to do that. I was chairman of the Occupational and Environmental medicine section of the American College of Chest Physicians so I have a lot of experience in this. You really need to be seen by a physician who understands this is serious.

JC: It’s on the schedule when I get back to Colorado. What do you see when you look at the test results from myself and the other people down here? What do they tell you?

MH: Let me tell you one more thing before I forget. I think that the only way to come close to getting the ultimate answer down there is to — there has to be a federal task force if you will. A federal effort where there would be half a dozen or a dozen specialists in this field who would have the protection of the government either temporary commissions from the U. S. public health service or something like that. Who would be responsible for organizing all the science and all the medicine and trying to get people to deliver care down there. I just don’t think you are going to get many volunteers unless they know they have the protection of the government. The annals of environmental diseases are strewn with stories about physicians who have had their lives ruined.

JC: The impacts of what is happening down here is are so big it’s very hard to wrap your head around it.

MH: I will give you one other example while we are talking about it. In the early 1990s I had called a bunch of cases, I saw patients who were sick from their environment who worked for Dow and DOW Chemical and a couple of the steel mills. In an eighteen month period I had one Blue Cross Blue Shield audit, two Medicare audits, a Michigan Employment Security Commission audit, a USAID Inspector General’s audit, and I was the target of a federal grand jury investigation. After two years and tens of thousands of dollars Medicare thanked me for teaching them how to catch a crook, apologized for bothering me — I told them how they could catch crooks and they thanked me. The US government, the local FBI office actually called my attorney and said they really weren’t able to find anything and my attorney who is a former US Attorney said that the government never calls when they have investigated somebody they just leave them dangling for the rest of their lives. The degree of harassment towards physicians is enormous, which I think is part of the reason — because of the conflicting forces at work in the Gulf, because of the probably less than half truths that are floating around that there needs to be a federal task force of independent physicians and scientists who have the protection and full faith of the United States. The way the system works, I think it would mean temporary commissions in the public health service. I don’t think even the oil companies that work down there would try and bump off a guy who works with the public health service.

JC: A number of people I have spoken to in Washington share that same opinion. Does it help to have test results in hand that show high levels of exposure from this event?

MH: I remember you had no Benzene but a lot of Hexane and a couple of Hexane metabolites. I am not sure what that means because where you see Hexane, Hexane causes what is called a dying back neuropathy, meaning the nerve cells in the arms and legs die back from the distal tips to the proximal end. You can end up with numbness, pain, all sorts of things. Hexane is a direct petroleum product so where you see Hexane you would expect to see Benzene. Now, that having been said I personally don’t even do actual solvent levels anymore because they are fraught with error. Rubbing alcohol is the prototypical solvent, and if you put a cap of rubbing alcohol on a flat surface like marble or something it’s usually gone before you would have a chance to get a paper towel it evaporates so quickly. So what happens with the organic solvents in general is that unless there is absolutely perfect control when they are drawn, there is a fair amount that will evaporate, if in fact not all of it. One of the dangers of people going to this lab (Metametrix), which I think is a good lab, is if they get the test drawn at a facility that lets it sit out for a little bit you are going to get a false negative result. In a case like yours, if you believe the sample is valid and it shows that you have Hexane and Hexane metabolites and also Octane in your blood, then it’s a pretty good clinical indication of how to go about treating you, which is usually just drinking a lot of water and then treating the end organ damage. End organ damage meaning we know if you inhale this stuff, if you have it in your system, it will damage your nerves. so we take a look at the nerves. The nerves will not show up abnormal on a test until there has been 30% damage. So what I do here and what I teach my residents is that for most people who come in to see the doctor in this field with a problem you will get more yield in terms of finding pathology and being able to help them if you look for end organ damage rather than the presence of a solvent because the solvent could have evaporated after it has already whacked the brain or whacked the liver.

JC: I spoke to the founder of Metametrix and he said that the tests were designed to pick up these compounds in the body after part of it, particularly Benzene, has been flushed. He indicated that the Benzene would not show up for very long once you were exposed but that the other compounds, the Ethylbenzene, m. p.-Xylene, the Hexane, which was way high, the Methylpentanes and the Isooctane, all of those things indicated to him that we were exposed to significant amounts of Benzene.

MH: That’s what I would think, too.

JC: When you look at these results is there reason to believe we might have sustained serious damage to our organs?

MH: In order to be scientific about this you have to have baseline data on a large population. What the oil company doctors, the professional experts that will ultimately be hired in these cases will argue is that you don’t know what background is in the area. I have seen them do this. They will go out and check 90 people and they will find people with results less than yours or more than yours and they will say this is background so with this particular patient you can not rely on the validity of the testing. On a scientific basis that’s true, I would prefer background. What happened to you right now is you have an indication that you breathed in harmful agents — you have a marker. They are called bio-markers. A bio-marker is the Hexane, N-Hexane and the Octane. You have evidence that you inhaled it because it’s in your blood. Nobody has correlated how much N-Hexane in your blood by PPM or PPB correlates with actual nerve damage. You need to have pulmonary tests, high resolution cat scans of your chest, liver function and cardiac function tests. What should happen with people with these exposures is at an absolute minimum, and I do not believe this is adequate, but at an absolute minimum the NIOSH recommended health monitoring tests should be done. Be certain to ask the doctor examining you if they have ever been paid or retained by a petroleum company or a chemical manufacturing company.

JC: I can do that.

Test Results for Jerry Cope

Additional Information on the the Health Impacts of the Gulf Oil Spill can be found at Sciencecorps and Dr. Riki Ott.

Who among us can remember back, oh so long ago, when Hurricane Earl was a Category 4, just one degree shy of the Katrina’s astonishing destruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast States of Mississippi and Alabama?

Those of us on the East Coast were assured that Earl would smash into North Carolina’s the barrier islands, dash up toward Newark, New Jersey, and then onward to Nantucket and pretty much anywhere else Earl wanted to go. The predictions were ominous.

I live in New Jersey and it is late afternoon on Friday as this is being written. Not a drop of rain in sight. No doubt some will arrive later tonight, but Earl has veered out into the Atlantic and is just barely holding on to a Category 1 status.

How many hours did Fox News, the Weather Channel, and all the others devote to sensational satellite pictures of the Mighty Earl until, over the hours, it became apparent that those intrepid reporters waiting for it to come ashore were reduced to interviewing disgruntled surfers unhappy that they could not commit suicide in Earl’s surging waves?

This is what I keep telling people over and over again. The weather is the perfect definition of chaos. It will do what it wants to do and not what the geniuses sweating over “computer models” say it will do.

We humans in our suburbs and great cities are like tiny insects in its path. People that keep telling you that humans are altering the climate are lying to you.

That’s why we have to ask ourselves, if the meteorologists cannot predict what a Category 4 hurricane will do with more than a wisp of certainty, why should anyone listen to those charlatans who insist they know what the weather will be in five, ten, twenty or fifty years?

I’m not talking about legitimate climatologists who study trends over centuries, but the one’s that insist on transforming the economy and society out of their conceit that they know that “global warming” is coming and it’s going to be bad.

It’s not coming; the Earth has been cooling for the past decade. It is a perfectly natural and well-known cycle. It could stick around a few years. Or it could mutate into the next Ice Age.

Today my local daily newspaper had an editorial about global warming and why the skeptics are wrong. That is a level of denial and flat-out ignorance that defies reality.

The reality is that the most sophisticated weather forecasting computer models, along with weather satellites, did not know with any certainty what Hurricane Earl was going to do or go. It largely spared the East Coast and piddled off into the Atlantic. News at eleven.

I am glad the radio and television meteorologists tried to warn us and I am glad that the hurricane turned out to be far less destructive than anticipated, but I know they had no more idea than I what would occur.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

It is clearly unfair to compare, from left to right, Princess Letizia of Spain, Carla Bruni, the wife of France’s president, and Aunt Esther…I mean Michelle Obama, seen here together. That said, one picture is still worth a thousand words.

It’s wrong! Wrong to compare first ladies, but this one is always going on about what we should eat and how much.

Harry Reid is a genius when it comes to military tactics — just ask him.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal recently questioned the Harry Reid and Sharron Angle campaigns on various issues.

Here’s part of the Reid campaign’s explanation for why the Nevada Senator once said “the war is lost”:

On REID’S COMMENT THAT THE IRAQ ‘WAR IS LOST’

REID: At the time Sen. Reid made this comment, President Bush had been pursuing a failed, stay-the-course strategy that had cost thousands of American lives and billions of taxpayer dollars. Iraq appeared to be on the verge of a sectarian civil war. He was simply pointing out what our military leaders, including Gen. Petraeus, had been saying for months: that we could not win by staying the course; the war needed to be won diplomatically, politically, and economically. Sen. Reid and his colleagues were successful in forcing President Bush to finally abandon his failed approach and refocus on political reconciliation. This is what ultimately paved the way for the Iraqi government to take greater responsibility for Iraq’s future.

Sun Tzu himself couldn’t have thought up a more brilliant strategy. Congratulations, General Reid.

And all along we thought Reid was being pathetic and weak — I for one feel bad for ever criticizing him.

Here’s a flashback to when Harry “Patton” Reid rallied our brave men and women to victory with his trademark Churchillian leadership style:

There’s a big difference between “we can’t win unless…” and “we lost.” Harry Reid hopes nobody can tell the difference.

Thugs-in-chief

My syndicated column today takes on the rise of President Obama’s best new Big Labor buddy, Richard Trumka — whose looming presence on the political scene I first flagged in April. As we noted last week, he’s got a combined $88 million war chest with his labor alliance and a Marxist get-out-the-vote force behind him. When they are through, they’ll make the SEIU Purple Army’s political expenditures (and its thuggery) look like a pittance.

On a related note, the NLRB (with SEIU attorney Craig Becker recess-appointed onto the catbird’s seat) is set to launch an assault on workers’ rights to a secret ballot to remove an unwanted union. See here. Card check through the back door. Who needs the legislative front door?

And yesterday on Megyn Kelly’s show, I noted that union members can opt out of having their hard-earned dues used for political purposes. Several readers e-mailed that they had never heard of the process by which this was possible and wanted to know how they could do it. Here are your rights as a union worker. Here is a backgrounder on the permissible use of forced dues. Here’s my 1999 column on how public school teachers in Washington state challenged their union over their political dues power grab. Free speech not only means the freedom to voice your political views, but also the freedom from being forced to pay for someone else’s. U.S. Supreme Court precedent established by the D.C.-based National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation guarantees the right to full financial disclosure from a union and a right to challenge the figures in court if they disagree. Spread the word.

***

Big Labor’s legacy of violence
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

To mark Labor Day 2010, President Obama will join hands with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in Milwaukee and pose as champions of the working class. Bad move. Trumka’s organizing record is a shameful reminder of the union movement’s violent and corrupt foundations.

The new Obama/AFL-CIO power alliance — underwritten with $40 million in hard-earned worker dues — is a midterm shotgun marriage of Beltway brass knuckles and Big Labor brawn. Trumka warmed up his rhetorical muscles this past week with full-frontal attacks on former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. He indignantly accused her of “getting close to calling for violence” and suggested that her criticism of Tea Party-bashing labor bosses amounted to “terrorizing” workers.

Trumka and Obama will cast Big Labor as an unassailable force for good in American history. But when it comes to terrorizing workers, Trumka knows whereof he speaks.

Meet Eddie York. He was a workingman whose story will never scroll across Obama’s teleprompter. A nonunion contractor who operated heavy equipment, York was shot to death during a strike called by the United Mine Workers 17 years ago. Workmates who tried to come to his rescue were beaten in an ensuing melee. The head of the UMW spearheading the wave of strikes at that time? Richard Trumka. Responding to concerns about violence, he shrugged to the Virginian-Pilot in September 1993: “I’m saying if you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you’re likely to get burned.” Incendiary rhetoric, anyone?

A federal jury convicted one of Trumka’s UMW captains on conspiracy and weapons charges in York’s death. According to the Washington, D.C.-based National Legal and Policy Center, which tracks Big Labor abuse, Trumka’s legal team quickly settled a $27 million wrongful death suit filed by York’s widow just days after a judge admitted evidence in the criminal trial. An investigative report by Reader’s Digest disclosed that Trumka “did not publicly discipline or reprimand a single striker present when York was killed. In fact, all eight were helped out financially by the local.”

In Illinois, Trumka told UMW members to “kick the s**t out of every last” worker who crossed his picket lines, according to the Nashville (Ill.) News. And as the National Right to Work Foundation (pdf), the leading anti-forced unionism organization in the country, pointed out, other UMW coalfield strikes resulted in what one judge determined were “violent activities … organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union.”

Trumka washed off the figurative bloodstains and moved up the ranks. As AFL-CIO secretary, he notoriously refused to testify in a sordid 1999 embezzlement trial involving his labor boss brethren at the Teamsters Union. No surprise. Thugs of a feather: Trumka’s violence-promoting record echoes the riotous Teamsters strikes dating back to the 1950s, when the union organized taxicab companies to target workers with gas bombs, bottles and fists.

And now, Trumka is spearheading a Democratic Party get-out-the-vote campaign by far-left groups — publicized in the revolutionary Marxist People’s World — to “energize an army of tens of thousands who will return to their neighborhoods, churches, schools and voting booths to prevent a Republican takeover of Congress in November and begin building a new permanent coalition to fight for a progressive agenda.”

Take those as literal fighting words. The bloody consequences of compulsory unionism cannot be ignored.

***

Related Labor Day weekend reading: Compulsory Unionism as a Fraternal Conceit? Free Choice for Workers: A History of the Right to Work Movement by Harry G. Hutchison, UC Davis Law Journal.

You know it’s been a long year and a half when you can sit back, watch a pitch for Hillary Clinton for president, and fool yourself into thinking that she (and her husband) looks like Reagan compared to Barack Obama.

From CNN:

We’ve still got two months left until the 2010 midterm elections, but we now have our first television commercial of the 2012 presidential campaign. And the ad advocates for a person who says she has no intention of running for the White House.
[...]
The commercial was paid for by a Chicago dentist named William DeJean.

When asked why he put the ad up, DeJean told CNN Thursday that “I’m a dentist and I don’t think this country is headed in the right direction.”
[...]
DeJean adds that he thinks people are having buyer’s remorse about President Barack Obama and says the current administration is ruining the Democratic Party. He says he spent $5,000 to create the commercial and tells CNN that besides New Orleans, the ad will run in Washington, New York and Los Angeles, and possible Houston. DeJean says he chose to first run the ad in New Orleans because he’s a native of the city and because the city’s in the news due to the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

DeJean sunk some money into Hillary’s efforts in the past, so what’s a little more root-canal cash spent trying to ensure that the 3 a.m. phone call isn’t answered with “we’re buying shrimp here guys, call back later”?

This has more overstatements than an ad for x-ray glasses in a comic book, but hey, it’s a start:

Editors Note: Warning! Hillary = more of Obama policies. Don’t fall for more empty promises and socialist policies. They are on the same team – Liberal Democrats. Voters beware!

This morning, President Obama was asked if he regrets his administration branding the past three months of economic misery as “Recovery Summer.”

His answer: “I don’t…”

I can’t blame him, really. Who couldn’t be fully recovered after this kind of a summer:

I feel more rested & recovered just looking at the pictures.

When they dubbed it “Recovery Summer,” nobody thought they were talking about us, did they?

Update: By way of HotAir, here’s an actual Time headline: What’s good about rising unemployment

Note the distinct lack of a question mark at the end.

Update II: Robert Reich didn’t get the memo that Recovery Summer was a huge success.

We begin another week with another look into the fascinating world of the global warming alarmists who, at this point, are merely incapable of using reason or logic to think things through. I have to admit that I admire the tenacity that these folks have. Despite massive amounts of counter-arguments, they still manage to move forward with the warning calls, completely ignoring all the things that simply render their argument moot. I think the thing that fascinates me the most about these carnival barkers is that they continually lambast opponents for using faulty logic or ill-conceived arguments, and then they go right ahead and do exactly what it is they just railed about. It boggles the mind. Global warming is something that I simply cannot ignore. The consequences of allowing the progressive movement to move forward with their plans are simply too devastating. At this point, I see the really loud voices in the debate as nearly as crack-pottish as Cesca is about racism. Therefore, I will continue to hammer them until the world shouts them down as the fruitballs that they are.

As a quick side note, it is amazing to me to watch the two sides of the political spectrum (GOP and DEM) continue to trounce each other, each accusing the other of using a campaign of fear to trick the American public. It isn’t surprising that they both use the same tactic. It is, after all, the best tactic they have found. And they are two different color shirts both on the same team. No, what is amazing to me is that each side is so quick to see through the fear the other side falsely uses, while simultaneously completely ignoring the fact that their side is doing to exact same thing. Progressives scream and holler about the right’s campaign of fear being used to take us to war or to pass something as dumbfoundingly unconstitutional as the Patriot Act or to oppose health care. Yet they somehow never seem to recognize, or at least refuse to acknowledge, the same bullshit coming out of their camp. They can’t seem to recognize the fear mongering around global warming and corporate bailouts and gun control or the urgency to pass health care. Just an observation. Mind-boggling at best how blind folks are to the tactics of the side they agree with.

Back to the topic of global warming. As an example of their tenacity, we have yet another article published this week over at the most popular far left think-tank, the Huffington Post. I have discussed Johann Hari and his madness around the global warming stuff before. But despite the insanity of what he says, he still gets published over there writing this stuff. I could say that he is hateful, but I don’t think he is. I leave that title to Bob Cesca, who is perhaps the most dishonest and hateful writer on HuffPo. No, Hari instead falls into the category of dishonest environmental alarmist. And you cannot ignore that he has written this piece. Hari was named one of the most influential people on the left in Britain by the Daily Telegraph. That he has influence with the nonsense that is below is downright scary. THAT is something to be alarmed about.

I have long disliked the environmental activists, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I find that they almost always have a passion for what they are doing that is so overriding that they simply don’t make any sense. Hari, for example, wants so badly to believe what he is spouting that he simply ignores logic and reason. I understand their hatred of corporations and of war (war activists and environmental activists tend to come from the same womb). But their belief that humans are somehow less important than some tree or bird is ridiculous. And their hubris as to the power of humans to do real damage to this planet is almost laughable, at least it would be if they weren’t so good at making small minded people agree with them.

I know that some folks think that global warming is not a topic worth discussing, but I disagree. I mentioned above that the potential for usurping our freedom and liberty under the guise of environmental activism is gigantic. Just the fact that Cap and Trade, which has failed miserably in every country or region foolish enough to attempt it, is still on the table is proof enough of how dangerous these global warming hangers on still are. And if you think Cap and Trade is bad based on its effectiveness, that is nothing compared to its impact on our freedom and our wallets. And as I mentioned, this article was posted in the last week over there at HuffPo. The environmental liars are still working hard to raise a false alarm, so we have to work just as hard to point out their lies and talk people off the proverbial ledge. So I will tonight point out the madness in his ridiculously misleading article (which for the record had a remarkable number of “right on” comments to it).

This Is the Hottest Year Ever, and the Climate Catastrophe Has Begun
by Johann Hari at the Huffington Post

Thank god man-made global warming was proven to be a hoax. Just imagine what the world might have looked like now if those conspiring scientists had been telling the truth. No doubt NASA would be telling us that this year is now, so far, the hottest since humans began keeping records.

Johann Hari

Interestingly, a partial year’s worth of temperatures is given as proof of something, right before he gets to the part of the article where he points out how stupid people are for thinking a snowy winter last year meant something. Very small length trends are only proof when it gets hotter, not colder. The other misleading statement here is “hottest since humans began keeping records.” Care to guess how long that time period is? Not thousands of years…. no, just 160 years with instruments and only about 60 years with any accuracy or global coverage. The truth is, the earth has been significantly warmer than this within the last 10,000 years. But it doesn’t sound as scary when you tell the truth, so Hari makes it sound as bad as possible.

The weather satellites would show that even when heat from the sun significantly dipped earlier this year, the world still got hotter. Russia’s vast forests would be burning to the ground in the fiercest drought they have ever seen, turning the air black in Moscow, killing 15,000 people, and forcing foreign embassies to evacuate.

Notice that he didn’t make use of other periods of drought, such as say the worst drought in history in China from 1876-79 (killed 9 million), or its second worst in 1942-43 (killed a million). In fact he ignores reality in even Russia. It isn’t the worst drought they have ever seen. Droughts are an inherent feature of the climatic conditions in the main agricultural zone of Russia. From 1891 to 1983 (92 years) Russia has spent a total of 27 years in moderate drought or above. Almost every article I could find on the Russian drought said that this drought is the worst in 50 years. A few speckled in with a hundred years. But no one but the environmental con-artists are claiming it as the worst in Russian history. And how about this for a whopper: “killing 15,000 people!” I could not find a single source anywhere that put the death toll from the Russian fires higher than 50. Hari’s ridiculous claim is 300 times higher than reality.

Because warm air holds more water vapor, the world’s storms would be hugely increasing in intensity and violence — drowning one fifth of Pakistan, and causing giant mudslides in China.

Again Hari attempts to distract by using false numbers presented in a way to scare the crap out of readers. The world’s storms are not reaching some unprecedented level of intensity or violence. A 1970 Cyclone in Bangledesh killed 500,000. One in 1737 in India killed 300,000. or even the worst storm in history, which was in 1287, part of a horrible storm year in Europe. The fact is that history is full of massive storms that did major damage and took hundreds of thousands of lives. And we find another misleading figure from Hari: “drowning one fifth of Pakistan.” The death toll in Pakistan is somewhere between 1,600-1,800. Pakistan is the world’s sixth highest population at over 170 million. One fifth of the population drowning would be 34 million people. Hari here implies that the death toll was 19,000 times higher than reality.

As for floods, there are far worse ones in recorded history. China had floods that killed a million people in 1887 and 300,000 in 1642. All this talk about the flooding that is happening is misdirection. It ignores the massive amount of data on past flooding that was worse, and attempts to baffle with bullshit, pointing to anything recent as unprecedented.

The world’s ice sheets would be sloughing off massive melting chunks four times the size of Manhattan. The cost of bread would be soaring across the world as heat shriveled the wheat crops. The increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be fizzing into the oceans, making them more acidic and so killing 40 percent of the phytoplankton that make up the irreplaceable base of the oceanic food chain. The denialists would be conceding at last that everything the climate scientists said would happen — with their pesky graphs and studies and computers — came to pass.

Has Hari ever looked at a map? First of all, I have read all the hype that a ice shelf three times the size of Manhattan sloughed off (see, they can’t even do a single thing without at least a little number manipulation), or is about to, I can’t remember which. I look at a big old world map, though, and can plainly see that Manhattan, despite it’s gigantic ego, isn’t really that big of an area. Even putting something three times that in the world’s interconnected water surface is like dropping an ice cube into a swimming pool. The claims of massive flooding or rising sea levels due to this are borderline insanity. But what Hari really misses in this whole thing is that THIS IS NOT A NEW PHENOMENON. That ice has melted, sloughed off, and reformed time after time in history. But it sure sounds like a dire emergency when he says it, doesn’t it. I am only surprised that he didn’t tell us about how millions of polar bears made their homes in that shelf.

Hari also conveniently relies on the price of wheat, where he allows the reader to draw their own speculation based on his claim. The conclusion he would like you to draw is that wheat is going higher due to shortages caused by climate change. Interestingly, he mentions nothing of the price controls, subsidies, or any other factor such as the massive impact of speculation on wheat futures, which would normally be the staple of the progressive argument against Wall Street.

This is all happening today, except for that final stubborn step. It’s hard to pin any one event on man-made global warming: There were occasional freak weather events before we started altering the atmosphere, and on their own, any of these events could be just another example. But they are, cumulatively, part of a plain pattern where extreme weather is occurring “with greater frequency and in many cases with greater intensity” as the temperature soars, as the US National Climatic Data Center puts it. This is exactly what climate scientists have been warning us man-made global warming will look like, to the letter. Ashen-faced, they add that all this is coming after less than one degree celsius of global warming since the Industrial Revolution. We are revving up for as much as five degrees more this century.

I have to throw the bullshit flag whenever some environmental activist throws out a generic term or “statistic.” Hari here tries to say there is a plain pattern where extreme weather is occurring withe greater frequency and intensity. Again he leaves the speculation to the reader, implying that what we are seeing is unprecedented in history, that the storms these days are stronger and more frequent. Pure nonsense. Again, we only have recorded history, which is relatively short compared to earth’s history. Even with only that small slice of data, we are not living in the most active storm period in recorded history or the most “intense” storms period of recorded history. Follow that with his generic “five degrees more this century”…. more hogwash.

My favorite pastime with manmade climate changes addicts is to figure out where the “cut-off” is. Like the famous hockey stick graph, climate change folks love to manipulate graphs and charts to make things look as bad as possible. If it was ten degrees hotter on earth 5000 years ago, you can bet your money that the graph they show you will only go back 4000 years, so that you don’t realize that we have been hotter before than we are now. The claims that we are living in the hottest years in history are only true if you get extremely short-sighted and go back very few years. For example, the graph you see to the side here shows temps for the last 10,000 years. Notice that there was a point where we were significantly hotter than we are now. Which is technically impossible since we didn’t have cars, factories, or nearly the population….. maybe our ancestors had a lot of gas, because we know without a doubt that if it was warming, it was caused by man, right?

Yet as the evidence of global warming becomes ever clearer, the momentum to stop it has died. The Copenhagen climate summit evaporated, Barack Obama has given up on passing any climate change legislation, Hu Jintao is heaving even more coal, David Cameron has shot his huskies, and even sweet liberal Canada now has a government determined to pioneer a fuel — tar sands — that causes three times more warming than oil. True, the victims are starting to see the connections. The Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has been opposed to meaningful action on global warming, until he found the smoke-choked air in the Kremlin hard to breathe. But if we wait until every leader can taste the effects of warming in their mouths, the damage will be irreparable.

The momentum to stop it has died because many people in the world have finally seen through the curtain and realized that the claims being made by Hari and his ilk are, at best, guesses and loose attempts at implying that correlation equals causation. Barack Obama hasn’t given up, though, I promise you that. His intent is control and social justice. Cap and Trade can help that happen. So he won’t abandon ship yet Johann, fear not. But he does realize that many Americans have seen through your BS and no longer buy that we are the cause of climate change, or that it is a catastrophic event in the way you are presenting it to be. And what is with the false claim about tar sands. Why false you say? Because you claim that it causes three times as much warming as oil. Problem… you can’t show that oil causes a single bit of warming. See that slippery little attempt to trick you into attacking tar sands simply because the enviro-alarmists don’t like it.

Given the stakes, the reasons why so many people still refuse to accept the evidence can seem oddly trivial. A common one is: “It snowed a lot in the US and Britain last year. Where was your warming then, eh?” But scientific theories are based on patterns, not individual events. You might know a 90-year-old woman who has smoked a pack of cigarettes every day of her life and is totally healthy. (I do.) It doesn’t disprove the theory that smoking causes lung cancer. In the same way, one heavy snowfall doesn’t prove anything if it is part of a wider overall pattern of dramatic warming. And that snow provably was. While it snowed a lot in a few places, there were at the very same time harsher, more bitter droughts in many more places — making it globally the fifth hottest winter ever recorded, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (All the others were in the past decade). And that winter is your punchline proof that warming isn’t happening?

Remember above when Hari argued that a few months worth of hot temperatures this year are proof that the global catastrophe is upon us? I am sure interested by the fact that he used a short period’s worth of data to make his claim valid right before he wrote about how a short piece of data being used to make a claim valid is “oddly trivial”. Oh, he’s right, the people claiming snow as proof are wrong. I just wish he and his compadres didn’t do the same thing with a straight face and think it is somehow different and more relevant. And notice that he presents fifth hottest winter ever on record as though it means something. Remember that “on record” only means the last century, and some areas had the hottest winter on record, while others had…. wait for it, some of the coldest on record. Amazing. And he also claims that some areas had “harsher, more bitter droughts.” Which areas in the US had harsher, more bitter droughts this last winter than say, the droughts in the dust bowl era of 1933-38? Just wondering.

But the broader public mood, smeared like sunscreen over us all, isn’t active denial. No — it’s the desire to endlessly postpone this issue for another day. In 1848, a 25-year-old man called Phineas Gage was working on constructing the American railroads. It was his job to lay explosives to clear rocks out of the way — but one day his explosive went off too soon, and a huge metal rod went through into his skull and out the other side. Amazingly, he survived — but his personality changed. Suddenly, he was incapable of thinking about the future. The idea of restraining himself was impossible to grasp. If he had an urge, he would act on it at once. He could only ever live in an eternal present. As a civilization, we are beginning to look like Phineas Gage on a planetary scale.

Did he really just waste a whole paragraph telling that inane story which would have been more easily conveyed by simply saying he thinks people are interested in only now instead of worrying about the future. I wonder if he thinks that the Democrats in Washington are related to Gage? After all, they seem only interested in spending massive amounts of money on programs now without ever thinking about the impact on the economy or the people in the future. As a government, the US is beginning to look like Phineas Gage on a National Scale. See how easy that was. But I will take it a step further. Environmentalists are the exact oppostie of Phineas Gage. They have no ability to accurately see the past to understand what has come before, and thus they are unable to accurately envision the future. Poor environmentalists. I hope they were able to get some good Hollywood surgery to fix the scar from that metal rod.

Yet scattered among us there is a fascinating group of people who are offering a path to safety. Every summer since 2006, ordinary British citizens have built impromptu camps next to some of the most environmentally-destructive sites in Britain and taken direct action to shut their pollution down. So far, it has worked: They played a crucial role in the cancellation of the third runway at Heathrow and a big new coal power station at Kingsnorth.

Way to go, environmentalists. You have successfully lobbied to raise the costs of flights out of Heathrow and the costs of energy in that region of the UK. And all while camping out and doing nothing to be a productive member of society. Bravo. Sane people would have come out to counter-protest…. but they were at work.

That’s how earlier this week I found myself on a high wooden siege tower in a camp in the Scottish hills, staring down across a moat towards the glistening, empty offices of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). You own this bank: 84 percent of it belongs to the taxpayer after the bailouts. Yet it is using your money to endanger you by funding the most environmentally-destructive behavior on earth, like burning the tar sands. The protesters chose to come here democratically — everything at the climate camps is done by discussion and consensus — because they have a better idea. Why not turn it into a Green Investment Bank, transforming Britain into a global hub for wind, solar and wave power? Why not go from promoting misery across the world to being a beacon of sanity?

So the protesters risked arrest in marching on RBS’ offices because they know the stakes. As Professor Tim Flannery, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, explains:

My great fear is that within the next few decades — it could be next year, or it could be in fifty years, we don’t know exactly when — we will trap enough heat close to the surface to our planet to precipitate a collapse, or partial collapse, of a major ice shelf… I have friends who work on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and they say [when a collapse happens] you’ll hear it in Sydney… Sea levels would rise pretty much instantaneously, certainly over a few months. We don’t know how much it would rise. It could be ten centimeters, or a meter. We will have begun a retreat from our coasts… Once you have started that process, we wouldn’t know when the next part of the ice sheet would collapse, we don’t know whether sea level will stabilize. There’s no point of retreat where you can safely go back to… I doubt whether our global civilization could survive such a blow, particularly the uncertainty it would bring.

Was there a little hint in there that the environmentalists believe that because of the bailouts the government should have the right to force the bank to do what the environmentalists want? 84% of the bank may be owned by the taxpayers in Britain, but I will promise you that nowhere near 84% of the people want anything to do with your madness. As for professor Flannery, “one of the world’s leading climate scientists”, (who also happens to be one of the leading climate activists and a leading proponent of the false science of anthropogenic global warming), he is a lost cause. the doomsday claims he makes in the above quotes are ridiculously vague. Sea levels would rise instantaneously, or over a few months. They could rise 10cm or a meter. There is nowhere you could retreat to? Every heard of mountains there, Timmy Boy?

Should I mention that Timmy also believes that the reason for action now, according to his book, is that “failure to act on climate change may eventually force the creation of a global carbon dictatorship, which he calls the “Earth Commission for Thermostatic Control”, to regulate carbon use across all industries and nations – a level of governmental intrusion that Flannery describes as “very undesirable”” That really sounds like Cap and Trade to me. Isn’t that what the environmentalists are telling us is the answer?

Nature doesn’t follow political fashion. Global warming may not be hot today, but the planet is — hotter than ever. When you stare out over the wave of Weather of Mass Destruction we are unleashing, who looks crazy — the protesters, or the people who have yet to join them?

OK, you asked. It’s you who looks crazy Johann. The earth isn’t “hotter than ever.” That is an outright lie and you know it. Either you are intentionally attempting to deceive people or you are one of the most gullible, and un-researching, political writers I have seen. I don’t write for the Huffington Post, or even write for a living. And I was able to throw sand all over your fire with a mere three hours of writing and research. Shame on you for either your lack of logical reasoning, or your intentional attempt to muddle the truth. And shame on The Huffington Post for allowing your madness to spread to the masses. I sometimes wish I had the gall to write pure fiction the way that people like Hari and Cesca do. I would be well read in progressive circles, have a home at HuffPo, and the adoration of legions of fans unable to think for themselves.

As I mentioned above, I know that some of you will be angry or disappointed that I have once again delved into the world of man-made global warming. But the fact is that so long as the fruitballs continue to try to lie to the people, I have to continue to point out their lies. I don’t ask that everyone simply accept my rebuttals to Hari. Instead, I ask that people read what is being presented with skepticism and think it through. Just stopping to think at the end of each sentence in his article above allowed me to see through the false claims, inflated numbers, and correlation/causation fallacies that were there for everyone to see. The problem is that people don’t stop and think. They want so badly to believe that they lose the ability to reason. If Hari was a conservative, and AGW was a GOP position, the same people who lap up Hari’s nonsense would be tearing it apart the same way that I did.

So there is an exercise for all of you who are willing. Go find an article that supports something that you believe in from the political group that you support, and see if you can tear it apart the way that I did to this article. Now THAT would be some good stuff for guest commentary pieces. Topics debunked by supporters who used logic, reason, and honesty to evaluate them.

You can read Johann Hari’s article at its original source at the Huffington Post via the link below. I highly encourage you to stop over and drop some comments on the article. I am sure they will treat you well over there.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/this-is-the-hottest-year_b_696704.html

Sheriff Joe Arpaio speaks to the media in Phoenix, after learning that he is to be sued by the US Justice Department.

If the Republican Party had one tenth the courage and determination of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, we might not be having this conversation.

Sheriff Joe has stood like a rock throughout attack after attack by the liberal Marxists, and never wavered in his determination to serve the people by whom he was elected. Joe is a gutsy, no-nonsense lawman who says just what he thinks and does what he says he’s going to do, which has been to incarcerate some 10,000 offenders, both domestic and illegal alien.

President Obama’s government has singled out Arizona for punishment, for being the first to stand against the statist tyranny of Washington. Eric Holder, at the orders of Barack Hussein Obama, initiated a lawsuit against Arizona’s anti-illegal alien legislation SB 1070, which had passed with overwhelming support from the people of Arizona. Gutsy Conservative Governor Jan Brewer stood against Obama’s hectoring. She told Holder to go pound sand and informed reporters that she was confident that the State’s argument would prevail.

In the meantime, it’s not like this is Joe Arpaio’s first rodeo with people who would love to see him dragged down. He’s faced them all and he’s still here. Now he’s become such a pain in the posteriors of the drug traffickers that they’ve put out an open contract on his head. Joe’s defiance has helped bolster the confidence of other border lawmen to stand up against an illegal rogue government that is obviously bent on the destruction of our society, at least as we know it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-hQNxJBKtU

Joe is an everyday American hero. There are heroes just like Joe all over the country. Look around. They’re your friends and neighbors… your family… your community.
Keep at it Joe, we’re with you.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

The Ground Zero mosque controversy has been erroneously portrayed by certain news pundits as being an issue about religious freedom. Of course this is another red herring designed to demonize those protesting against locating the mosque at ground zero — as if those opposing it want to deny a segment of Americans equal access to the First Amendment. Is it not ironic that only a few years ago we were told that dissent was the highest form of patriotism. Now that those people are in power we have an Orwellian reversal and dissent is again unpatriotic, with the added feature of being bigoted and phobic.

Muslim’s are certainly within their constitutional rights to build a mosque there if they desire. The question is whether they ought to. The issue is one of propriety, not religious freedom. Until pro-mosque apologists get past that fact they have yet to make a legitimate counter argument. That we are endowed with certain rights is granted by our national charter. How judiciously we are stewards of those rights will determine whether we can keep them and maintain our freedoms.

What is the motivation behind placing the mosque there if doing so causes so much public grief, considering that the Imam behind the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, has indicated he wants to build bridges? Interesting, that in the discussion, the most obvious thing that could be done to facilitate a peaceful resolution is scarcely mentioned. The Imam could just decide to build the mosque elsewhere. In fact, were I a Muslim, this is what I would be calling on my leadership to do. Some might argue that we must show the world that we are tolerant. Of course, according to the enlightened commentators, allowing the mosque to be built on the designated site is just the medicine we need to establish that impression.

But are not Muslim nations the ones suffering from the image problem? When we consider the austerity and human rights abuses within Muslim nations, shouldn’t they be trying to demonstrate that they are tolerant?

There are parallels between this issue and the soldiers’ funeral picketing performed by Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church congregants, a story which has popped up in the news again.

Members of that church have a constitutional right to their freedom of speech, but does anyone think they are building bridges or affecting positive change with their obnoxious and misguided efforts, merely because protesting is their constitutional right?

If those in charge moved the mosque to another location, think of the public relations bonanza it would be for Islam. It would put egg on the face of those who claim Islam is intolerant, it would silence the people who think the mosque construction is an effort to pour salt in the wounds of 9-11 survivors. and it would shut up the people who are claiming that building the mosque at ground zero coincides with the Islamic tradition of triumphalism(building mosques at the locations of great conquests). But we can offer them good advise and bank on the presumption they will ignore it.

Another aspect of this issue not being addressed is how Obama’s fawning overtures to the Muslim world(a probable reason for poll results indicating some think him a Muslim)will be interpreted by the militant factions within Islam. If you believe that the bombing of the World Trade Center in February of 1993 was a test of Bill Clinton’s resolve, and the 9-11 plane crashes were a test of how George W. Bush would react, then you have to wonder if terrorists don’t view Obama as an absolute pushover. In that case a more violent approach is unnecessary. Of course this is all speculation — but prudent speculation nevertheless if one is to be vigilant.

No doubt we will be told that protesting the mosque only results in a motivating factor for terrorist recruitment. But if the Imam is merely a moderate, how does he have so much influence on militants? That sort of assertion is easily reversible. A lack of resolve might well embolden the terrorists to be more daring. Are we supposed to capitulate to every demand under the threat of reprisals?

It seems that the past statements of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf are simply ignored. Rauf stated that America was complicit causing the 9-11 bombing by certain foreign policy stances. He believes that Sharia law and the U.S. Constitution are compatible. Rauf and others who are billing themselves as moderates, are yet reluctant to condemn known terrorist organizations. For those reasons alone we should be more cautious about endorsing him either financially or ideologically. After all, we elected a president recently in spite of warnings about his questionable associations, and many are just discovering that he is being true to his ideological nurturing. Why do we want to make the same mistake of failing caveat emptor again? Rauf claims that the dissent is all about the looming fall elections. If so, he isn’t helping his cause by keeping this a front page issue.

Recall that during the Cold War, we often heard the phrase “by conquest or consent,” indicated there was a stealth method of socializing America without a bloody revolution or all out military conflict, but America’s fall was surely inevitable. One should hardly suppose that militant Islam does not likewise countenance both revolutionary and evolutionary strategies in their plans of conquest.

Noticeably absent in all the furor are the champions of religious suppression, crying for expanded “separation of church and state.” It seems that some of these secularist organizations are little concerned if the religious persuasion at issue is in conflict with the advancement of Christianity. The real reason why some people willingly claim that militant Christianity(whatever that is)is equally, or more threatening to them and America at large, is because they realize that criticism of Christianity is actually highly unlikely to put one in harm’s way, and it is a form of bigotry that still remains socially acceptable.

If the mosque issue has the result of being politically polarizing, I hope that isn’t the only positive outcome when the dust finally settles at Ground Zero.

© Robert Meyer

New Orleans TV station WDSU is reporting on a new mishap off the Louisiana coast involving a shallow water rig.

One person is missing after a rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

It happened around 9 a.m., and as of 10:15 a.m., the rig was still burning, the Coast Guard said. Rescue crews from New Orleans and Houston are responding.

Officials said there were 13 people aboard the rig, and all but one are accounted for.

Pray for the workers. Brace for the political aftermath.

***

Meanwhile, in Greenland (hat tip: reader Lynn S.), eco-radicals are obstructing oil rig operations and threatening more:

Four Greenpeace activists who climbed a Cairn Energy oil rig in Greenland waters were arrested this morning and are now being held in police custody in Greenland.

The activists first scaled the oil rig Stena Don on Tuesday. They attached hanging platforms to the underside of the rig where they camped out in tents with self-heating meals until last night.

Freezing gale-force winds forced the climbers and Greenpeace campaigners on the ship Esperanza anchored one kilometer from the rig to decide to end the occupation.

It took the Greenpeacers four hours of climbing in bitter winds to scale the rig from their hanging platforms up onto the platform gantry, where police were waiting for them. They were taken into custody and flown off the oil rig by helicopter at 2 am.

…Ben Stewart, communications officer onboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza said, Looking out of my porthole at the massive waves, and feeling the movements of the Esperanza, there is no doubt in my mind that they took the right decision.”

“I hope and believe that this action will be remembered as the first step against our blind and reckless hunt for the last drops of oil on the planet,” Stewart said.

Right on:

(h/t Sissy Willis via F.A.M.)

And right on again, from Jerome Hudson via Human Events:

Like most Americans, I’ve had enough with this administration’s policies. I was fed up and fired up.

I am even more so in the wake of the most moving gathering I’ve ever been privileged to be a part of.

At one point, some of the people attending the Rev. Al Sharpton’s “counter rally,” coined “Reclaiming King,” stopped me. I guess they must have been judging me by the color of my skin not the content of my character, because they asked if I was going to come join them.

“No, I won’t be there,” I told them. “Why?” one of them asked with a grimace on his face. I looked at him and said, “I want to be where the Lord is and the Lord is in this place.”

One of the older black women in the group asked me if I felt like I was “selling out” for being one of the “tokens” in the Beck rally crowd?

I laughed and said “Ma’am, Al Sharpton is a pretender. He is going to tell you to pretend that the color of your skin matters. He is going to ask you to ignore the now overwhelming proof that 50 years after the Civil Rights movement, blacks are now destroying each other faster than the KKK could have dreamed.”

As I walked away, the group stood frozen, not knowing how to reply.

Three cheers for hope and change from independent-minded minorities revolting against their self-appointed civil rights “leaders.”

It’s a long time coming.

See also: Tolerant liberals attacking minority conservatives – ““Christianity Is A White Man’s Religion.”

An explosion has torn through an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, west of the site of the blast in April that caused a huge oil spill.

The blast, which threw 13 people into the water, was reported by a helicopter company at 0930 local time (1330 GMT).

The platform, which caught fire, was not producing oil or gas, the Department of Homeland Security said.

The blast occurred around 130km (80 miles) south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast.

Helicopters, boats and aircraft were sent to the site.

Immersion suits

All 13 workers who fell into the Gulf are accounted for and have been transported to another platform by an oil support vessel, the Coast Guard said. One person is reportedly injured.

The platform is owned by Mariner Energy and is located off the Louisiana coast

Before being rescued by the support boats, all 13 workers were given special immersion suits to protect them from the water, said Coast Guard chief petty officer John Edwards.

The federal government was prepared to respond to the situation if there had been reports of pollution, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Mr Gibbs added that President Barack Obama was in a national security meeting, and he was unaware if the president was informed of the blast.

The platform is owned by Mariner Energy and is located in shallow water, approximately 340ft (105m) from the floor of the Gulf.

“Right now we’re focused on search and rescue and then, ultimately, as this thing progresses we’re going to be looking into the cause,” Mr Edwards said.

Mariner Energy Spokesman Patrick Cassidy told the CNN TV network the blast occurred “quite a ways away” from any wells.

Mr Cassidy confirmed the platform was not in production at the time of the explosion.

The structure had been undergoing maintenance activities prior to the blast, said Melissa Schwartz, spokeswoman for Bureau of Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement.

Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two planes, and three boats were sent to the site of the explosion from the states of Louisiana, Texas, and Alabama.

Coast Guard helicopters did not spot any oil floating around the burning platform, said Coast Guard fireman Katherine McNamara.

The latest explosion comes more than four months after an blast ripped through a Deepwater Horizon rig run by BP, causing about hundreds of million gallons of oil to be released into the Gulf of Mexico.

By now you can probably read all about this in a revised report to the UN’s Human Rights Council that the Obama administration couldn’t wait to file like a nine year old girl tattling to momma after catching her brother behind the barn reading Playboy, but if you haven’t yet heard, here it is:

PHOENIX – The U.S. Justice Department sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday, saying the Arizona lawman refused for more than a year to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his department discriminates against Hispanics.

The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office’s defiance “unprecedented,” and said the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and having English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against people with limited English skills.

If putting warning signs up in parts of Arizona to deter legal US citizens from traveling through certain areas where they might encounter dangerous illegal activity is an acceptable response to crime, can’t the government just put up signs warning illegals not to travel through Sheriff Arpaio’s jurisdiction and leave it at that?

In an additional border security measure, the Feds are also investigating the national security threat that is Chuck E. Cheese. Apparently the manager of the Bensonhurst franchise was overheard calling a pizza “Italian food” and has been accused of profiling.

At a Robert Gibbs’ press conference, reporter Bill Plante asked Gibbs why President Obama has been AWOL while Democrats poll numbers have been nosediving. The fact is, Obama hasn’t been AWOL during the nosedive at all — he’s been the one pushing forward hardest on the stick.

Update: Arpaio’s office responds — “Not backing down” is an understatement:

The Obama administration has filed three lawsuits against Arizona in the last few weeks … one against a college district, one against the state of Arizona and now one against my office. Each lawsuit centers on something to do with alleged racial discrimination.

These actions make it abundantly clear that Arizona, including this Sheriff, IS Washington’s new whipping boy. Now it’s time to take the gloves off. As for today’s lawsuit against my office: These people in Washington met with my attorneys only a few days ago. And in that meeting, Washington got our cooperation; they admitted they already have thousands of pages of the requested documents; and they were given access to interview my staff and get into my jails. They smiled in our faces and then stabbed us in the back with this lawsuit. The Obama administration intended to sue us all along, no matter what we did to try to avert it.

Washington isn’t playing fair and it’s time Americans everywhere wake up and see this administration for what it really is. Calculating, underhanded at times and certainly not looking out for the best interests of the legal citizens residing in this country.

President Obama thinks that by recently signing a new bill spending $600 million to beef up border enforcement he will look tough on illegal aliens. But decisions such as today’s lawsuit by the Justice Department against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to stop his policies regarding illegal aliens shows where the administration’s policies are really headed.

The bill Obama signed, which authorizes the hiring 1,500 new border personnel, the deployment of a pair of unmanned reconnaissance drones, and replacing some bases along the border is valuable, but it hardly undoes what the president has done up to this point. With a recent Rasmussen poll showing that 68 percent of U.S. voters support a plan to continue building a fence on the Mexican border, Obama’s change strikes one as a temporary smoke screen.

Up until now the president has worked to cut the number of border agents. 384 border agents were cut last October 1st and in the 2011 fiscal year budget Obama proposed cutting another 180 agents through attrition.

But it isn’t just his record of previously reducing the number of border agents. Obama has strongly opposed the use of fences, whether real ones or virtual ones. In March, he halted funding for the physical fence. Spending on “Total, CBP/Border Security Fencing, Infrastructure, and Technology” (which included the virtual fence) has fallen from $1.05 billion in 2008 at the end of the Bush administration to $800 million in 2010 to $574 million in the coming 2011 budget. That is a $479 million annual cut, something that isn’t going to be made up with a pair of unmanned drones.

Unfortunately, Obama appears to wish for continued illegal immigration as his administration has actively tried to stop states from helping enforce current federal laws. Consider the many actions that Obama has taken so far:

– Just in the last last week two actions by the Obama administration have come to light. A defacto amnesty is being established where deportation cases are being dropped against illegal aliens who have already been arrested. In another case, a non-citizen, who committed several felonies ranging from perjury to voter fraud, was coached by the Department of Homeland Security on how to purge evidence of these actions from his record so that he could still be granted citizenship.

– The Obama administration has brought several lawsuits to try prevent states from discouraging illegal aliens from entering the country. One is well-known and aims to stop Arizona from requiring police to ask for some type of ID — no matter what their accent or looks — of anyone who is “technically ‘arrested’” by police. In May, another lawsuit was brought against Arizona over its law revoking state business licenses for companies that regularly violate immigration laws. The Obama administration’s stance is especially odd since business licenses routinely are conditioned on a crime-free record and such rules have always been determined by the states. The administration hopes to make immigration law the single exception of a law allowed to be broken.

– Consider Obama’s recent decision to hire former Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of State and Local Coordination. But Hurtt has been a long-time strident supporter of “sanctuary city” policies, where some cities simply let illegal aliens live without any worry about the police ever checking their immigration status.

– The Department of Education and the U.S. Border Patrol apparently boycotted Arizona over the state’s new immigration law by canceling planned conferences that were to be held in the state. While the administration denies this, Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords told Fox News a month ago: “We have the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education that had planned for meetings, had then canceled those meetings with the reason given that it was because of the immigration law.”

– In July, the Obama administration announced it would start ensuring illegal aliens the same protections as citizens as far as labor laws go. Illegal aliens can complain to Department of Labor about minimum wage or overtime work rule violations without risking deportation. The Department of Labor even makes public service announcements in Spanish: “You work hard, and you have the right to be paid fairly. And it is a serious problem when workers in this country are not being paid every cent they earn. Remember, every worker in America has the right to be paid fairly, whether documented or not. So call us.”

Obama’s past actions on illegal aliens clearly shows where he stands on the issue. A Politico story last month indicated that Obama is starting to make many changes on a variety of issues to convince voters that he really holds middle of the road views, and the wide news coverage given to the $600 million new spending on border security might convince some voters that Obama and the Democrats really care about curbing illegal immigration and beefing up border security. But many voters already thought that they were getting a much more moderate president when they voted for Obama in 2008. One suspects as soon as the November election has passed, some voters will find that they have been fooled a second time.

For a few hours on Wednesday the nation’s attention was on James J. Lee who took hostages at the Discovery Communications headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. Negotiations failed to sway him from his mission or free his hostages. Lee was a Green zealot and police were left with no alternative than to shoot Lee dead.

Every movement has its crazies, but not every movement is as crazy as the one that calls itself “environmental.” Almost entirely devoid of any real scientific justification, the Greens have devoted decades to literally inventing one bogus crisis after another, culminating with “global warming.”

At the heart of the Green philosophy is the belief that the Earth’s problems are all caused by human beings.

“Humanity are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what’s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture,” Lee wrote in an eleven-point Internet communiqué.

“Saving the Planet means…decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies”, said Lee. “The planet does not need humans.”

We can dismiss Lee as a lunatic, but what are we to do regarding Dr. John P. Holdren, the top science advisor to President Obama?

In a new book, “Control Freaks”, Terence P. Jeffrey, the Editor-in-Chief of CNSnews.com, devotes several pages to Dr. Holdren, along with his colleague, Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich, the author of the 1968 bestseller “The Population Bomb.” Both academics have collaborated over the years and both share a contempt for humanity that can only come from fevered, delusional minds devoted to intellectual theories.

In a paper published in 1973 by the California Institute of Technology, Dr. Holdren asked “Is even the present U.S. population of 210 million too large? Should there be zero economic growth as well as zero population growth?” Together with Dr. Ehrlich, he later wrote, “Halting population growth must be done, but that alone would not be enough. Stabilizing or reducing the per capita resources in the United States is necessary, but not sufficient.”

The famous six degrees of separation between James J. Lee and Dr. Holdren is glaringly obvious. Lee’s manifesto said that finding “solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy” was the only way to save the planet.

Tell me that there is a whit of difference between Dr. Holdren’s and Lee’s “solutions”. Tell me there’s any difference between Dr. Holdren’s and Dr. Ehrlich’s view that “What is actually required is nothing less than a transformation of human society” and the transformation that Obama has been imposing on the United States of America?

Jeffrey reports that “This transformation would start with population control, which might eventually require involuntary measures if voluntary ones failed.” Dr. Holdren recommended that “Several coercive proposals deserve discussion, mainly because societies may ultimately have to resort to them unless current trends in birth rates are rapidly reversed by other means.”

“Political pressure must be applied immediately to induce the United States government to assume its responsibility to hold the growth of the American population,” wrote Dr. Holdren.

Dr. Holdren is no fan of the human race in general and those enjoying citizenship in the United States in particular, given his lack of regard for free speech. Both he and Dr. Ehrlich at one point advocated making it “illegal for any utility to advertise in such a way as to promote greater demand for power.”

What better way to reduce available electrical power than to advocate switching to wind and solar energy which together barely represent one percent of the electricity generated daily? Neither is dependable and neither can ever meet the needs of the nation.

What better way than to oppose the use of coal for plants that generate just over fifty percent of the nation’s electrical power or to keep a multi-billion dollar repository for spent nuclear waste closed?

What better way to kill millions of people who fall victim to a disease like Malaria than to ban DDT, the most effective way of eliminating mosquitoes from transmitting it?

What better way to embolden a nuclear attack on the nation, killing millions, than to advocate treaties to reduce our nuclear deterrent?

There are no environmental solutions except those similar to the Nazi “final solution” that killed six million of Europe’s Jews and five million other presumed enemies of the state in Germany. Those in charge of Germany in the 1930s were dedicated environmentalists.

So, James J. Lee is one less environmentalist thanks to a SWAT team, but what are we to do about Dr. John P. Holdren and the host of other environmental crazies seeking to eliminate humans from planet Earth?

© Alan Caruba, 2010

I don’t really want to sit on a throne or even in the Oval Office. But I would certainly like to see a few of my notions become reality.

For openers, I don’t like the way we put people on the Supreme Court. I don’t approve of the partisan grandstanding and I don’t like the way the nominees are forced to parse their answers in order to avoid providing the opposition with ammunition. I am not pleased to see Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan sitting on the bench, but I would have voted to approve them. That’s because I believe the president is entitled to appoint whomever he wishes, whether it’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Robert Bork. If you’re a conservative, it’s a crying shame that within 18 months, Obama got to name two judges, but it’s time we all learned that elections have consequences, and that only those lunkheads who believe that Kagan and Sotomayor are the same as Roberts and Alito will continue to parrot the mantra that there’s no difference between the two political parties.

The other change I would inaugurate is to limit a Supreme Court justice’s term to 10 years. There is no good reason for it to be a lifetime job. Why on earth should a judge be provided with tenure of three or four or even five decades when the person who put him there is long gone after, at most, eight years? On top of which, we get to actually vote for the president. It makes as much sense that a justice gets to determine when to call it quits as it does for politicians to decide how big a salary and how large a pension to give themselves.

Next, I would make it a crime for an elected official to ever call anyone a racist. It is outrageous that the Democrats get to condemn Tea Party members as racists simply because it’s such an easy way to deflect legitimate criticism. I say if you apply that epithet to an individual or a group of individuals, you had better be ready to make your case in a court of law.

Most recently, we had Rep. Maxine Waters accuse the members of the Congressional Ethics Committee of being racists because they had the effrontery of accusing her and Charles Rangel of violating House rules. It didn’t matter to her that half the members of the committee are liberals; all that mattered to her was the color of the two defendants. In spite of the fact that over the years it has most often been white politicians who have been targeted for ethics violations — people like Newt Gingrich, Barney Frank, Thomas Dodd, Joe McCarthy, Austin Murphy, Bob Packwood, Daniel Flood, Gerry Studds and, most recently, Eric “The Tickler” Massa — it only takes one black politician being accused of malfeasance to bring the race card to the top of the deck.

The most aggravating aspect of these congressional investigations is how minor the sanctions are. They range from mere reprimands to censures to expulsion. The last one sounds ominous until you realize that these people are so arrogant they actually think that expulsion from office is the harshest penalty imaginable. If a civilian were guilty of half the charges that have been leveled against inveterate tax cheat Rangel, he’d wind up in the poky, not catching the rays at his Dominican villa.

The thing that has always amazed me is the impunity with which black politicians lie, cheat and steal. Even when I was a kid, I found it mind-boggling that the voters in Harlem would continue re-electing a guy like Adam Clayton Powell. So, was it any wonder that when those voters put a new man in office, it would be none other than Charles Rangel, who, like Powell, loves living it up in the Caribbean and hates paying taxes?

After serving time on drug charges, Marion Berry was welcomed back by his constituents, who apparently couldn’t resist his campaign slogan, “He may not be perfect, but he’s perfect for D.C.”

I suppose, according to Maxine Waters, it was white imps who stuck the $90,000 worth of bribes in William Jefferson’s freezer.

This isn’t to suggest that white voters are a lot better. After all, when it was discovered that one of his former roommates was running a gay prostitution ring out of their townhouse, Barney Frank was actually censured by his colleagues in the House. But that hasn’t prevented the numbskulls in his Massachusetts district from re-electing him every two years like clockwork. Even when it was discovered that his latest boyfriend was raising marijuana at their Ogunquite, Maine, getaway, all Barney had to say was that he didn’t recognize the flora that was being raised and harvested in the backyard. Nobody thought to ask him if he ever suspected that the cigarettes Jim Ready stunk up the house with weren’t Camels or Marlboros. Still, if I were Barney, I think I’d stop looking for my significant other on bathroom walls and consider spending a few bucks with eHarmony. He could fill out their famous questionnaire by saying he likes white wine, moonlight walks on the beach and ObamaCare.

©2010 Burt Prelutsky

Sheesh, what are you complaining about, Arizona? Obama has sent 30 members of the National Guard and had 15 warning signs put up. But no, that’s not enough — You just can’t please some people:

(CNSNews.com) – Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said requests by Arizona law enforcement personnel and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) for 3,000 National Guard troops along the state’s border with Mexico have been answered so far with 1 percent of that number deployed there this week.

“We have a whopping 30 [National Guard troops] this week that are showing up,” Babeu told CNSNews.com. “It’s less than a half-hearted measure designed to fail.”

But the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has placed 15 signs along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 that links San Diego with Phoenix and Tucson warning travelers of drug cartels and human trafficking operations.

Thirty troops, or as Obama’s calling it, “The surge.”

How much help was Arizona to expect from an administration that just condemned their immigration law in a report to the UN Human Rights Commission? If anything, those 30 troops are there to keep an eye on Jan Brewer and to report back directly to Ban Ki-moon.

National Security, Obama-style: Warning Americans to avoid parts of America

Last night Obama delivered a speech about a war that he exploited for political advantage during the election, and ignored the rest of the time. A war that he tried to sabotage as a Senator, and neglected once in the White House. Where Bush conducted constant conferences with commanders in the field, Obama has let the clashing egos of former Clinton Administration staffers, and a few imported radicals, determine how the war will be conducted. Of all the charges leveled at Bush over the war, he could never be accused of just not giving a damn. Yet that is exactly the case with Obama. He just doesn’t give a damn.

While US soldiers are still dying in Iraq, Obama did his best to take credit for ending combat operations. And used his speech as a opportunity to show off his new Oval Office decor. The level of tone deafness involved in using a wartime speech to show off your new office furnishings, while most Americans are cutting back is completely incomprehensible. It shows a profound contempt for both topic and audience, and a self-involvement that borders on the pathological. It’s as if Obama only managed to interrupt his countless rounds of golf and his vacations, just to put on his best sad face and show off his new rug.

Obama has never had much patience for doing the hard work of governing the country. Instead he shuttled from country to country, golf course to golf course, and resort to resort– while shifting the real work onto congress and his aides, who shifted it onto their aides. What America got was the unlimited power fantasies of immature radicals with no responsibility given flesh in legislation that hardly anyone in the majority party seemed to even bother to read. Meanwhile, having confused his job with that of a King or a Pope, Barry dispensed his wisdom on every random topic from police procedures in Massachusetts to sports picks in the NBA and the NFL. It was as if Obama did not understand that he had won the right to do a very difficult and unpopular job. Instead like the contestant who is picked out of the audience at a game show, he only seemed to understand that he was suddenly very rich and famous.

The Obama Administration hopelessly blurred the lines between Reality television and politics, giving us a self-indulgent child in the Oval Office, who is always eager to pose for photos and be fawned upon, but does not understand that he has responsibilities, rather than unchecked powers. The difference between Barack Obama and Levi Johnston, is not in intelligence or ethics, it’s in marketability. Obama was the ultimate marketable candidate. And the equivalent of the economies of some small countries were spent marketing the hell out of him. But how do you market failure? And what do you tell customers when the product they bought turns out to have nothing inside?

When Obama ran for office, his theme was that he had “New Ideas” to offer. Even more than the ubiquitous Hope and Change was the promise of new ideas. These new ideas weren’t communicated as such, instead the campaign focused on its social media strategy, its posters and all the other accouterments of its “cool” image. And now toward the beginning of the end of a new year, it is impossible for even Obama supporters to find any actual “New Ideas”.

Yet Obama and his media lackeys have decided to again adopt “New Ideas” as their talking point. At the beginning of the month, Obama warned that Republicans “have no new ideas”. Always a day late and a trillion bucks short, Biden chimed in last week on message, echoing his boss by warning that the Republicans have no new ideas. This would be a more potent talking point if the public weren’t sick and tired of new ideas that put their grandchildren deep into debt while taking away their jobs. And if Obama actually had any new ideas.

For all the glamor of the new, Obama began his term with an expanded program of bailouts and frenzied spending. This was not a new idea. It was an existing unpopular policy that his administration decided to practice with no fiscal discipline, or even the pretense of actually trying to help the economy. On Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama carried on variations of the Bush Administration’s existing approach, but with little to no oversight or interest. Obama’s big nationalized healthcare showpiece is a revival of a Clinton Administration policy priority, that is short on new ideas, but long on pork and sweetheart deals for his backers.

There are no new ideas here, just a powergrab as all the rats and cockroaches from previous administrations and NGO’s  have scuttled under Obama’s skirts to romp in the pantry. Their feeding frenzy has pushed the national debt to unprecedented heights. The economy has been squashed and countless jobs have been lost as possessed by a sense of invulnerability, the left was allowed to wage a ruthless war against the private sector, even while Obama’s friends in the business community were allowed to profit from bailouts and stimulus plans that did a lot for Democratic donors, but nothing for the economy.

The hoary corruption of congress met the fresh stench of the administration radicals whose shoulders Obama had ridden on to victory. And together they ravaged and pillaged the country from coast to coast. They took over some companies and spent fortunes on others. They imposed illegal taxes on the public, while turning them into debt slaves for generations to come. They stood up for Muslim terrorists and kicked American patriots in the face. And now at the beginning of the end of the year, they wonder why judgment day has finally come calling. Why the conservative opposition can bring out people in force, while Obama can only trot out his minions in cushy bureaucratic positions and assorted union thugs to try to silence political dissent. But trying to silence political dissent, only gives it more volume.

And his media lackeys who made the transition from anti-government radicals to pro-government radicals with the 2008 election, are denouncing the opposition as anti-government radicals. That puts them in the same position that their opponents were in four years ago. The difference though is that four years ago, conservatives were supporting a government to protect America from terrorists. Today the left is fighting in order to support a corrupt and wasteful regime in order to protect its entitlements. There is no critical issue in their corner. The Obama Administration has fudged the economy and ignored the war. Its domestic policies are wildly unpopular, and its future program, with such highlights as Cap and Trade and Amnesty, might actually be even more unpopular than ObamaCare. And of course there are the Krugmanites still pushing an even more massive spending program that would take the existing tremendous debt, and multiply it without any limit.

And after over a year and a half in office, Obama has learned no wisdom and gained no perspective. He is still the same arrogant, touchy and insecure celebrity that he was in 2008. He has not become ennobled, but embittered. His controlling tendencies have grown out of control. His irritation and paranoia bubble to the surface under strain. Where he promised transparency, he has instead delivered layer upon layer of barriers and secrets, laws that cannot be read, hearings that cannot be attended, and press conferences that never seem to happen. While the people go hungry, he goes on vacation. When speaking about why American soldiers are dying, he shows off his brand new rug.

With the incomprehensible arrogance of the entitled elite, liberals insist that they do not understand why so much of the country hates them now. And when magazines compete to outdo each other with covers highlighting what they believe is the ignorance and bigotry of most Americans, the choir gets preached to, but the congregation has left. Liberals keep reassuring each other of their own wisdom and innate rightness, serving as an echo chamber for their own delusions of superiority, so that when they lose, they can reassure each other that they only lost, because the country wasn’t ready for their enlightened leadership.

But the country in 2008 actually was ready for new ideas. But what people meant by new ideas, had more to do with removing the obstacles and barriers, the high costs and frustrations of the very brand of government that the Obama Administration has so devotedly championed. Had most Americans understood, that the Obama Administration’s policies were a much more severe and irresponsible version of the programs of previous administrations, implemented with no restraint, and practiced with no oversight, 2008 would have produced dramatically different results. But by its actions, the Obama Administration has also brought into being the first widespread and heavily organized opposition to that same brand of government that America has seen in some time.

As Obama takes time out from his busy schedule of playing golf and looting the country to speak to the peasants, his voice has lost the magic power it once had. His image has become ubiquitous and worthless. His rallies go unattended. Because his power always lay in the promises that his followers projected onto him. His magic was the magic of a longing for change. That longing for change is stronger than ever, but it is not to change with him, but to change from him. To change a government that they don’t like, for one that actually listens to them. Like his economic policies, Barack is bankrupt. And unlike them, he is the one that will have to pay the bill.

In Invasion, published eight years ago, I pointed out that the Bush administration’s lame immigration enforcement measures included orange rubber cones and useless “No Entry” signs posted at the border.

Well, file this under “The more things change.” The Washington Times reports that the Obama administration is posting new signs at the border warning travelers and illegal aliens about violent smugglers.

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.

The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.

They warn travelers that they are entering an “active drug and human smuggling area” and they may encounter “armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed.” Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to “use public lands north of Interstate 8″ and to call 911 if they “see suspicious activity.”

As Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer noted earlier this summer, the signs are empty gestures without real physical deterrents to back them up:

And why bother calling 911 when you know DHS/ICE is backing off deportations?

Don’t let the White House spin on illegal alien statistics distract you. The bipartisan open-borders end game is amnesty. Always has been. Always will be.

***

GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis:

If the administration would take meaningful steps to secure our border, it wouldn’t need to put up signs in Arizona warning citizens that travel 100 miles from the border is unsafe (“Signs in Arizona warn of smuggler dangers”).

Likewise, the Department of Homeland Security should not spend its time writing memos about how to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants or dismiss thousands of deportation cases.

As Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight, that is why I’m asking for hearings and answers from DHS on what it’s doing to protect the border.

The administration continues to take actions that seem counterproductive to border security, and we need to know why that is the case. We need to make sure DHS is complying with, and enforcing, our nation’s immigration laws.

Absurdity Alert: The same Obama Justice Department that refuses to prosecute Black Panthers for blatant voter intimidation, and the same incompetents that will not take action against Sanctuary Cities, like San Francisco, which openly and aggressively violate federal law, have decided to focus on Joe Arpaio, a white Sheriff in Arizona.

So what exactly is Arpaio’s great crime?

Enforcing the law and protecting American citizens in Arizona from attack by invading illegal aliens, mostly from Mexico.

As reported here, in part:

“PHOENIX – The U.S. Justice Department sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday, saying the Arizona lawman refused for more than a year to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his department discriminates against Hispanics.

The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office’s defiance “unprecedented,” and said the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and having English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against people with limited English skills.”

Arpaio discriminates against Hispanics, does he?

For Goodness sakes, everyone knows that the overwhelming percentage of invading criminals who come here are Hispanic!

That being the obvious case, the fact that the sheriff is focusing on Hispanics is proof positive that he is doing his job!

To do otherwise might be more politically correct, but it would also be utterly stupid to anyone who is really interested in ending and reversing the invasion of America.

Of course, to leftists like Barack Obama and Janet Napolitano, the objective is NOT to prevent the invasions.

Rather, the goal is to create an electoral advantage for the Democratic Party by pandering to enough “Newly Arrived Refugees,” regardless of the impact on American traditions and language.

Rule of law, American sovereignty, secure borders and protecting the American people are naïve and old school concepts to the new age Marxists who have taken over.

Which is why our anti-America president reported Arizona to the United Nations.

Utterly and completely unacceptable and irresponsible.

GD Barack Obama for being the greatest affront to American culture and traditions in our nation’s history!

To say that President Obama’s speech, marking the retirement of our last combat units from Iraq, was uninspiring… well, it was uninspiring. As usual, he’s taking credit for something that was planned back in the Bush administration. He did acknowledge former President Bush in an offhand sort of way, making it almost an insult.

We know Obama doesn’t do ad lib, so it makes you wonder about some of his writers. It’s like they are as far out of touch with the pulse of America as Obama is, maybe more so. The speech was short for Obama, but then he hasn’t much to say these days… just the same updated re-written garbage that he’s been spieling for two years.

The speech returned to his economy, and make no mistake about it, it is his economy… George Bush retired two years ago, though you wouldn’t know it to listen to some of the liberal backwash out there. There’s no amount of spin that can disguise the fact that George Bush left us with a budget deficit of 400 billion dollars plus, which was bad enough in the opinion of most conservatives.

Barack Hussein Obama has lied, cajoled, bribed and corrupted the political process with his phalanx of Marxist apparatchiks and regulators… choking the life out of American business. He has blasted his way through 1.85 trillion dollars.

If you look at it from that aspect, it’s not surprising he doesn’t have much to say.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

It is beginning! The death of the system of warm water currents in the Atlantic Ocean is already having a icy effect in Europe. It will get much worse!

Russia has seen it’s first snow accumulation of the season.

http://www.snow-forecast.com/maps/static/europe/last3days/snow

According to Rutgers Global Snow Lab, Russia doesn’t normally receive snow until the second week in September.

http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_dclim.php?ui_day=251

More is forecast for the next week, as well as in Norway and Sweden. Southeast Greenland is expecting heavy snow.

http://www.snow-forecast.com/maps/static/europe/next3to6days/snow

Much of The UK and Ireland are expecting cold weather during the next week, as is Moscow. Temperatures on the Greenland ice sheet will be dipping down to near -25C. Nice August weather!

http://www.snow-forecast.com/maps/static/europe/132/lapse

Never before so much rain in Germany ~ link ~Germany received more rain in August than in any August since records began in 1881, the German Weather Service (DWD) announced Monday.

“We have measured more than double the amount of rain as the long-term average for August,” said DWD spokesman Uwe Kirsche.

About 157 litres per square metre had fallen on average across the nation, a new record. The previous record, set in August 1960, brought “only” 134 liter / sq m. That compares with the average over many years of just 77 litres / m.

The sun shone in August 2010, approximately 143 hours, some 27 percent below its normal target of 197 hours. Many weather stations reported new records in the lack of sunshine, for which records have been kept since 1951.

It has been especially frustrating for farmers. The spring barley harvest was cut off right at the beginning of the month, then in the second half of August were the oats.

Snow in Alps a month earlier than normal ~ link ~ Snow in Voralberg, a month earlier than “normal”. Many farmers still had their cattle in the fields! Global warming seems far removed from these regions.

Coldest South Australia in 35 Years ~ link

August turns to November in Germany ~ link ~ My calendar tells me its still August, well at least for another day, but here in Southern Germany it is like November!!! Cold rainy, windy weather the whole day! A raw day to just stay inside and hope and wait for the return of warmer weather! Only7 degrees Celsius during the day for the end of August!! I think we are going to see some record low high temps broken today!

There is Snow falling in the middle Alps turning the landscape into a winter wonderland!

The weather pattern across western and eastern Europe has been consistent with global cooling! Reports that the grain harvest is in jeopardy because it’s been too cold and wet and the corn fields are not looking all that great either for this time of year! The outlook for September is cooler and wetter than average!

Half a meter of snow in Norway ~ link ~ I live in Norway. Here is what was in the news today!

The winter just arrived, with a half a meter of snow. It snowed several places in the mountains in eastern Norway, although it is still only August.

“This was totally unexpected,” says Anne Wangen to Nettavisen.

She is a hostess at Juvasshytta at the foot of Galdhøpiggen in Norway, and said she woke up to a lot of snow outside the tourist cabin Sunday morning.

“There have been large amounts of snow, between 40 and 50 centimeters,” says Wangen. It is many years since there has been snow so early in Juvasshytta, located 1840 meters above sea level.

“It has happened that there has been so much snow in August, but it is many years since the last time. It is not normal anyway, and there was no indication of a time,” says Wangen.

Southern Hemisphere sea ice now approaching record high levels ~ link ~ However, “the expansion of the Southern Hemisphere sea ice, now approaching record high levels, ought to tell you something about the oceans immediately around the sea ice,” says Bastardi. This large mass of water is cooling and has cooled most dramatically in the area where it is warmest (the tropical pacific).

“We see drastic cooling over land and IN THE ATLANTIC TOO. In fact, it basically keeps cooling the tropical Pacific into next year, then hammers away at the two areas warmest now – the Atlantic and the continents.

When The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and all other media in America begin to devote lots of space and time to the subject of bed bugs, you know America has a real pest problem.

Uniquely, I know a lot of pest control professionals because I have worked closely with the industry for a quarter century providing public relations services.

So let me say that I have the ANSWER to the nation’s plague of bed bugs.

It’s called PESTICIDES.

Not just any pesticides, but specifically the ones that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has successfully banned or forced pesticide manufacturers to stop registering or manufacturing because of the cost involved.

The truth you will never read elsewhere is that there are pesticides that will rid the nation of this massive bed bug population explosion and they will do so rapidly. Can you imagine an end to the current bed bug infestations just about everywhere in say, a month?

The problem is that the pesticides I have in mind are not available because the EPA has removed them from use by either pest control professionals or consumers. Meanwhile, pest control professionals are doing everything they can with the methods available to them, all the time being called unreliable or worse. The options they have at their disposal are few and usually expensive.

The public keeps being told that bed bugs are resistant to many of the presently available pesticides. That’s true. There is one, however, that does work against them. It’s Propoxur, a carbamate, and pest control professionals and state health officials alike are waiting for an emergency exemption to use it because the label permitting its use is already in existence. A pesticide can only be used against the insect pests for which it has received a label registration.

Propoxur used to be available, but in 1996 the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) was passed and changed the rules under which individual pesticides were deemed toxic. Instead of meeting a safety factor rating of, say 100, FQPA demanded a new rating of 1,000. It’s call a “risk cup” and it swallows perfectly good pesticides whole and makes them go away. It was one of those arbitrary and bureaucratic rulings that had no relationship to the actual science or even the risk involved.

That’s how environmentalists who want to end the use of all pesticides work the angles. They find ways to get legislation and regulations passed that effectively eliminate any rational reason for a manufacturer to spend some $300 million to bring a new pesticide to market. Then, after one has been working successfully for fifteen years, the EPA requires that more money be spent to re-register it for use despite ample evidence that it poses no health hazard when properly applied.

That’s a rigged game and, ultimately, it is rigged against Americans who understandably expect and want to be pest-free.

Now, why would environmentalists want to end the use of pesticides? Because, without them, insect and rodent pests spread disease and disease kills people.

If there is one thing that really bothers environmentalists it is the presence of human beings on planet Earth. Scratch a Green and they will tell you there are too many people and they need too much food, too much water, and take up too much space to exist.

The fewer number of pesticides that are permitted for use, the sooner the pests will develop resistance to them. That is one reason the bed bug population is thriving. As a colleague of mine points out, however, “Resistance is the pattern in nature. Plants have an arsenal of pesticides they naturally produce to ward off attack by insects, and they need them, because insects develop resistance to what they are using to defend themselves.”

“If bed bugs were transmitting some sort of deadly disease,” says my colleague, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We would get Dursban tomorrow and bed bugs would be gone by the end of the week.”

The problem, however, is that the EPA forced Dow Chemical Company to stop making Dursban available to consumers several years ago. It fell into the “risk cup.”

Why is there a massive bed bug population explosion in the U.S.? Ask the EPA.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the Obama job-killing machine get kicked in the ass one more time. They wanted federal judge Martin Feldman to dismiss the drillers’ lawsuit challenging their original moratorium. No dice.

Via Reuters:

A federal judge in New Orleans rejected on Wednesday the U.S. government’s request to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its original 6-month deepwater drilling moratorium…The drilling halt was subsequently amended, so the government sought to toss out the Hornbeck lawsuit, arguing it was no longer relevant.

But U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, who earlier this summer blocked the first drilling halt, said in a 20-page ruling that the government’s amended moratorium offered “no substantial changes” from the first one.

More scathing criticism for Salazar, via the WSJ:

Judge Feldman also noted that in crafting the second moratorium, Mr. Salazar appeared to have relied heavily on documents and data that he had at the time of the first moratorium order. “Nearly every statement in the July 12 decision memorandum is anticipated by documents in the May 28 record, or by documents that were otherwise available to the Secretary before May 28,” the judge said.

Related: A bipartisan call to lift the de facto shallow drilling ban NOW:

Rep. Gene Green (D-TX) and Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) have again written to Department of the Interior Secretary Salazar regarding the issuance of new permits for shallow water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The letter, co-signed by 37 Democrats and Republicans from across the country, is the second letter that Rep. Green and Rep. Boustany have sent to Secretary Salazar reminding him of the significance of the Gulf Coast economy and urging the immediate issuance of new permits.

“Before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, new shallow water drilling permits were being issued at the rate of 10-15 per week,” Rep. Green stated. “Since the shallow water moratorium was lifted on May 28, a total of 4 new permits have been issued.”

In a letter to Secretary Salazar sent May 20, Reps. Green and Boustany with 54 of their colleagues warned of the potential impact of losing shallow water oil and natural gas production. Since then, 14 rigs have been idled in the Gulf which represents 30% of the shallow water fleet. If the pace of new permits does not accelerate by the end of September, over 70% of the shallow water rigs will be inactive.

“There are thousands of jobs directly connected to shallow water drilling,” Rep. Green continued. “At a time when the economy is still coming back from the worst recession in recent memory, we just can’t afford to lose more jobs. My colleagues and I continue to share concern over this de facto moratorium and the deepwater moratorium as domestic energy production is not only vital to energy independence, but to the Gulf Coast economy.”

On Monday all the talk in the news was of an Israeli Rabbi who had called on G-d to strike down Abbas, the head of the terrorist Palestinian Authority, and the rest of his gang. On Tuesday, terrorists murdered a pregnant woman and three other people. The same media that dedicated a great deal of time and energy to condemning Rabbi Yosef for inciting violence, wasted no such time on discussing the constant incitement to violence practiced by the Palestinian Authority media under Abbas’ authority. Earlier this month Abbas had participated in a ceremony honoring the Munich Massacre terrorists. But the media has never been particularly interested in discussing Muslims calls to violence, only in tarring any opponents of Muslim terrorism in the darkest and ugliest shades.

The murder of four Israelis and an unborn child was described not in terms of their human toll, but their political toll. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs condemned the terrorists as “enemies of peace”. The six orphans no doubt thank him for his concern for “peace”. State Department spokesman PJ Crowley dispensed with the human side entirely, warning that, “There may well be actors in the region who are deliberately making these kinds of attacks in order to try to sabotage the process”. A statement that could have been produced by a particularly unfeeling computer.

Gibbs boasted that the Palestinian Authority had condemned the attack. In reality what the Palestinian Authority had said was that the attack went “against Palestinian interests”. As condemnations go, this is right up there with, “Don’t sell drugs while the police are watching my house” and that all time champion, “I am completely against adultery in an election season”. The Palestinian Authority did not condemn terrorism. It condemned the attack because it wasn’t in their interest today to murder the Ames’ and their friends today. Tomorrow it might be again.

Meanwhile the US is funding a Palestinian Authority ad campaign aimed at Israel, which suggests that Abbas and his terrorist gang is interested in peace, and Israel isn’t. So while Obama talks about being evenhanded, he is actually funding a series of domestic attack ads against Netanyahu, and for Abbas.

The media coverage has proven to be every bit as human as Gibbs and Crowley, focusing on the murders only in terms of their potential for disrupting the negotiations. This has been the modus operandi for almost two decades now, as articles have run off the press treating every murder of Israelis not in terms of the dead, but in terms of what it will do to the prospects for a terrorist Palestinian Arab state.

There is of course not a word of regret from any of Hamas’ useful idiots in Code Pink or any of the other leftist supporters of the flotilla. The Huffington Post, which ran a puff piece promoting Khaled Meshaal, has no regrets either. Neither do any of those who called for an end to the blockade of Gaza. The same people who can spend pages moaning about the plight of the people of Gaza showed their true humanitarian colors with their silence. Ordinary Arab Muslims meanwhile filled the comments section of newspapers with cries of “Allahu Akbar”. As they have in response to the murder of Jews for over a thousand years.

There is of course no talk permitted of that. No context given beyond that of the omnipresent “occupation”. No acknowledgment that murdering Jews is part of the Koran, which dehumanizes Jews in particular, and other non-Muslims in general. Meanwhile within Israel itself, the left has conducted a hateful campaign of incitement against those Jews they brand as settlers. While the Ames’ were being murdered, leftist radical writers like Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua were calling for a boycott of settlements. Like the ghetto police and the Kapos who responded to being confined to ghettos and concentration camps by beating the Jews that the Germans had placed under their authority, Israel’s leftists respond to European boycotts by finding Jews within their own country to boycott.

But to the left the Jews are occupiers, much as they were to the Nazis. The murder of Jews is discussed only in terms of whether the latest bodies of men, women and children will dissuade Israeli from making more concessions to terrorists. In their eyes Arab Muslims are human, Israeli Jews are not. Will the murder of a pregnant woman keep Israeli negotiations away from the table for an extra day? An extra hour. An extra minute. That is all that matters.

The negotiations are a sham. The Arab Muslims voted for Hamas and they still support Hamas. They do not support Abbas or Fayyad, whose party barely registered in the last election. They are the “moderate terrorists” chosen by Washington D.C. and Brussels, with no popular support or right to rule. Israeli is being bullied by Obama into making concessions to a terrorist group that does not even represent Palestinian Arabs. A terrorist group that has never renounced violence or chosen peace. The whole thing is a farce within a sham.

Right now Obama is pretending that Abbas and his minions are the good murderers, and that Hamas and their ilk are the bad murderers. This despite the fact that unofficial contacts between Obama’s people and Hamas date back to the election. But Hamas is not willing to do what Fatah is, which is pretend to be moderate terrorists. And so billions of US and EU dollars go to Fatah, while Iran and the rest of the Muslim world takes care of Hamas. The killing goes on. And Israel takes the blame.

A day from now, this story will already be gone from the headlines. Swept away by the latest manufactured scandal used by the media to target Israel in the non-stop orgy of hate directed at the Jewish state. Perhaps it will be a soldier’s Facebook photo. Or an offhand remark by some Rabbi. Or Noam Chomsky will be denied the right to enter PA territory to incite more violence and terrorism. But no doubt it will be some other thing entirely. There are enough NGO’s and reporters working hard to smear Israel, and they are bound to turn up something. But even if there is nothing, the story will vanish quickly anyway. Because while a number of dead Turkish Islamists who tried to beat and stab Israeli soldiers to death may trigger an international outcry and calls for an investigation– but the murder of four Israelis will trigger none.

And that tells you all that you really need to know about what is going on here.

If Israel does succeed in killing the terrorists responsible, then there will be immediate condemnations of Israel for endangering peace. Most likely however Israel will not. Few if any media outlets will ever write about the fact that this year Israel dismantled the vast majority of security checkpoints in the West Bank this year. A factor which doubtlessly played a major role once again in enabling Muslim terrorists to murder Israelis. In response to the attack, a few of the checkpoints may go up again for a short time, and the left will cry out in outrage, and condemn Israel as an apartheid state. Obama will pressure Israel and the checkpoints will go down again. And the whole sad bloody farce will replay itself from the beginning again.

Because that is the way it has been all along. 18 years ago when Israel expelled the Hamas leadership, the media and the world’s politicians demanded that Israel take them back. And Israel did. The dead are on their conscience. That of the Hamas enablers and Israeli politicians who have repeatedly chosen to give in, rather than make a stand. And now the remaining territory for making a stand is dwindling. And the farce still grinds on.

Terrorism does not exist because there is no peace process. Terrorism exists because there IS a peace process, or a possibility of one. Hamas murdered five Jews because it wanted to make a point to all the parties that it could not be ignored. At other times it is Fatah that has done the same thing. Israel’s willingness to negotiate stimulates terrorism like nothing else, because it creates a tangible reward. Without the peace process, terrorism would fade away on its own. As it had become a fading problem, before Clinton and Rabin plucked Arafat out of obscurity and gave him a country to play with. Paradoxically as long as the peace process holds out the possibility of victory for the terrorists, there can be and will be no peace.

by Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld
Global Research, August 30, 2010

Laboratory confirmed oil-soaked sorbent pad. (Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

The State of Mississippi’s Department of Marine Resources (DMR) opened all of its territorial waters to fishing on August 6. This was done in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Food and Drug Administration, despite concerns from commercial fishermen in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida about the presence of oil and toxic dispersants from the BP oil disaster.

On August 19, Truthout accompanied two commercial fishermen from Mississippi on a trip into the Mississippi Sound in order to test for the presence of submerged oil. Laboratory test results from samples taken on that trip show extremely high concentrations of oil in the Mississippi Sound.

James “Catfish” Miller and Mark Stewart, both lifelong fishermen, have refused to trawl for shrimp because they believe the Mississippi Sound contains submerged oil.

James "Catfish" Miller, third-generation fisherman. (Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

“I can’t tell you how hard it is for me not to be shrimping right now, because I’m a trawler,” Miller told Truthout as he piloted his shrimp boat out of Pass Christian Harbor, “That’s what I do. I trawl.”

But Miller and Stewart have been alarmed by their state’s decision to reopen the waters, and have been conducting their own tests for oil in areas where they have fished for years. Their method was simple – they tied an absorbent pad to a weighted hook, dropped it overboard for a short duration of time, then pulled it up to find the results.

Miller and Mark Stewart attaching the sorbent pad to the weighted hook. (Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

(Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

(Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

(Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

On each of the eight tests Truthout witnessed, the white pads were brought up covered in a brown oily substance that the fishermen identified as a mix of BP’s crude oil and toxic dispersants.

The first test conducted was approximately one-quarter mile out from the harbor, and the pad pulled up was stained brown.

(Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

“They’re letting people swim in this,” Miller exclaimed, while holding the stained pad up to the sun.

Miller and Stewart were both in BP’s Vessels Of Opportunity (VOO) program and were trained in identifying oil and dispersants.

This writer took two samples from two absorbent pads that were brought up from the water that were covered in brown residue and had them tested in a private laboratory via gas chromatography.

Miller and Dahr Jamail holding oil-soaked sorbent pad. (Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

The environmental analyst who worked with this writer did so on condition of anonymity, and performed a micro extraction that tests for Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH). The lower reporting limit the analyst is able to detect from a solid sample like the absorbent pad is 50 parts per million (ppm).

The first sample this writer took was from a sorbent pad dropped overboard to a depth of approximately eight feet and held there for roughly one minute. The location of this was 30 18.461 North, 089 14.171 West, taken at 9:40 AM. This sample tested positive for oil, with a hydrocarbon concentration of 479 ppm. Seawater that is free of oil would test at zero ppm of hydrocarbons.

The second sample this writer took was from a sorbent pad dropped overboard to a depth of approximately eight feet and held there for roughly one minute. The location of this was 30 18.256 North, 089 11.241 West, taken at 10:35 AM. This sample tested positive for oil, with a hydrocarbon concentration of 587 ppm.

“For the sorbent pads, I had to include the weight of the actual pad itself, so that the extraction was done as a solid,” the environmental analyst explained. “Had I had enough liquid in these samples to do a liquid extraction, the numbers would have been substantially higher.”

Jonathan Henderson, with the nonprofit environmental group, Gulf Restoration Network, was on board to witness the sampling.

Jonathan Henderson, coastal resiliency organizer of the Gulf Restoration Network. (Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

“I can verify that the shrimp boat captain retrieved what appeared to be an oily residue,” Henderson told Truthout. “My suspicion is that it was oil. It felt like oil to the touch, and it smelled like oil when you sniffed it.”

On August 11, the two fishermen brought out scientist Dr. Ed Cake of Gulf Environmental Associates. (Video from the “Bridge the Gulf Project” of that trip with Miller and Stewart finding an oil and dispersant mixture on open Mississippi fishing waters.)

Dr. Cake wrote of the experience: “When the vessel was stopped for sampling, small, 0.5- to 1.0-inch-diameter bubbles would periodically rise to the surface and shortly thereafter they would pop leaving a small oil sheen. According to the fishermen, several of BP’s Vessels-of-Opportunity (Carolina Skiffs with tanks of dispersants [Corexit?]) were hand spraying in Mississippi Sound off the Pass Christian Harbor in prior days/nights. It appears to this observer that the dispersants are still in the area and are continuing to react with oil in the waters off Pass Christian Harbor.”

Shortly thereafter, Miller took the samples to a community meeting in nearby D’Iberville to show fishermen and families the contaminated sorbent pads. At the meeting, fishermen unanimously supported a petition calling for the firing of Dr. Bill Walker, the head of Mississippi’s DMR, who is responsible for opening the fishing grounds.

On August 9, Walker, despite ongoing reports of tar balls, oil and dispersants being found in Mississippi waters, declared “there should be no new threats” and issued an order for all local coast governments to halt ongoing oil disaster work being funded by BP money that was granted to the state.

Recent weeks in Mississippi waters have found fishermen and scientists finding oil in Garden Pond on Horn Island, massive fish kills near Cat Island and Biloxi, “black water” in Mississippi Sound, oil inside Pass Christian Harbor and submerged oil in Pass Christian, in addition to what Miller and Stewart showed Truthout and others with their testing.

Stewart, third-generation fisherman. (Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

“We’ve sent samples to all the news media we know, here in Mississippi and in [Washington] D.C.,” Stewart, a third-generation fisherman from Ocean Springs told Truthout, “We had Ray Mabus’ people on this boat, and we sent them away with contaminated samples they watched us take, and we haven’t heard back from any of them.”

Raymond Mabus is the United States Secretary of the Navy and a former governor of Mississippi. President Obama tasked him with developing “a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan as soon as possible.”

Mabus has been accused by many Gulf Coast fishermen of not living up to his task.

Thus, since neither the federal nor state governments will conduct the testing they feel is necessary, Miller and Stewart decided to take matters into their own hands.

Stewart had on board another homemade method of capturing oil in the water column. He took two tomato cages and filled them with sorbent pad, layered it in plastic to hold it together, and left a hole at the bottom for the water to flow through, creating a large sorbent cone that could flow through the water.

(Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

The method proved fruitful. After several tests in the water column, being careful to never let it touch bottom, the cone was turned a dark brown with what turned out to be a very high concentration of oil.

“Normally we have a lot of white shrimp in the Sound right now,” Stewart told Truthout of the current situation in the Mississippi Sound. “You can catch 500-800 pounds a night, but right now, there are very few people shrimping, and those that are, are catching nothing or maybe 200 pounds per night. You can’t even pay your expenses on 200 pounds per night.”

“We think they opened shrimp season prematurely,” Miller told Truthout. “How can we put our product back on the market when everybody in America knows what happened down here? I have seen so many dead animals in the last few months I can’t even keep count.”

Jonathan Henderson holding the oil-soaked sorbent cone. (Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

On August 19, several commercial shrimpers, including Miller and Stewart, held a press conference at the Biloxi Marina. Other fishermen there were not fishing because they feared making people sick from toxic seafood they might catch.

(Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

“I don’t want people to get sick,” Danny Ross, a commercial fisherman from Biloxi told Truthout. “We want the government and BP to have transparency with the Corexit dispersants.”

Ross said he has watched horseshoe crabs trying to crawl out of the water and other marine life like stingrays and flounder also trying to escape the water. He believes this is because the water is hypoxic due to the toxicity of the dispersants, of which BP admits to using approximately 1.9 million gallons.

“I will not wet a net and catch shrimp until I know it’s safe to do so,” Ross added, “I have no way of life now. I can’t shrimp and others are calling the shots. For the next 20 years, what am I supposed to do? Because that’s how long it’s going to take for our waters to be safe again.”

David Wallis, another fisherman from Biloxi, attended the press conference. “We don’t feel our seafood is safe, and we demand more testing be done,” Wallis told Truthout. “I’ve seen crabs crawling out of the water in the middle of the day. This is going to be affecting us far into the future.”

“A lot of fishermen feel as we do. Most of them I talk to don’t want the season opened, for our safety as well as others,” Wallis added. “Right now there’s barely any shrimp out there to catch. We should be overloaded with shrimp right now. That’s not normal. I won’t eat any seafood that comes out of these waters, because it’s not safe.”

Miller told Truthout that when he worked in BP’s VOO program, “I came out here and looked at the oil and they didn’t let us clean it up most days. Instead, I watched them spray dispersants on it at night, and now we’re seeing acid rain burn holes in our plants. I’ve seen them spray Corexit from Carolina Skiffs with my own eyes. For the last several weeks now they keep shoving these lies in our face. You can only turn your head so far, for so long.”

The hydrocarbon tests conducted on the samples taken by this writer only represent a tiny part of the Gulf compared to the massive area of the ocean that has been affected by BP’s oil catastrophe. A comprehensive sampling regime across the Gulf, taken regularly over the years ahead, is clearly required in order to implement appropriate cleanup responses and take public safety precautions.

On their own, Miller and Stewart have made at least seven sampling runs, covering many tens of miles of the Mississippi Sound, and have, in their words, “rarely pulled

Global Research Articles by Dahr Jamail

Global Research Articles by Erika Blumenfeld

New Orleans attorney Stuart Smith knows something about radiation from oil drilling:

Smith is well known for his role as lead counsel in an oilfield radiation case that resulted in a verdict of $1.056 billion against ExxonMobil for contaminating land it leased from the Grefer family in Harvey, Louisiana –– and attempting to cover it up.

***

The court stated that from June 1986 to March 1987, “Exxon officials intentionally withheld information,” and that the company “knew the [radioactive] scale posed a direct danger to the physical health of those workers.” Oilfield waste, or TERM, is primarily composed of radium, a highly radioactive chemical element. Exposure to radium is known to cause a variety of devastating illnesses, including cancer. Radium’s impact on the human body is particularly acute because it is similar chemically to calcium –– and as such is frequently absorbed into bones after entering the body.

But at least there’s no radiation being released from BP’s oil spill in the Gulf, right?

Well, as Smith wrote on August 4th:

This is directly from the EPA website discussing oil drilling activity:

“These processes may leave behind waste containing concentrations of naturally-occurring radioactive material (NORM) from the surrounding soils and rocks. Once exposed or concentrated by human activity, this naturally-occurring material becomes Technologically-Enhanced NORM or TENORM. Radioactive materials are not necessarily present in the soils at every well or drilling site. However in some areas of the country, such as the upper Midwest or Gulf Coast states, the soils are more like to contain radioactive material.”“Radioactive wastes from oil and gas drilling take the form of produced water, drilling mud, sludge, slimes, or evaporation ponds and pits. It can also concentrate in the mineral scales that form in pipes (pipe scale), storage tanks, or other extraction equipment. Radionuclides in these wastes are primarily radium-226, radium-228, and radon gas. The radon is released to the atmosphere, while the produced water and mud containing radium are placed in ponds or pits for evaporation, re-use, or recovery.”

“The people most likely to be exposed to this source of radiation are workers at the site. They may inhale radon gas which is released during drilling and produced by the decay of radium, raising their risk of lung cancer. In addition, they are exposed to alpha and gamma radiation released during the decay of radium-226 and the low-energy gamma radiation and beta particles released by the decay of radium-228. (Gamma radiation can also penetrate the skin and raise the risk of cancer.) Workers following safety guidance will reduce their total on-site radiation exposure.”

It’s time BP comes clean as to the levels and amounts of radioactive material released from this oil spill.

Here’s the EPA website which Smith is quoting.

As Scientific American noted last November:

What scientists call naturally occurring radioactive materials—known by the acronym NORM—are common in oil and gas drilling waste, and especially in brine, the dirty water that has been soaking in the shale for centuries. Radium, a potent carcinogen, is among the most dangerous of these metals because it gives off radon gas, accumulates in plants and vegetables and takes 1,600 years to decay.

***

Federal laws don’t directly address naturally occurring radioactivity, and the oil and gas industry is exempt from federal laws dictating handling of toxic waste ….

The American Petroleum Institute recognizes radiation as a common enough problem in petroleum production to sell a variety of publications on the topic, such as:

Finally, California shows some sense. Lawmakers trashed an onerous, ill-timed, empty-gesture plastic bag ban pushed by radical greens this week:

California lawmakers have rejected a bill seeking to ban plastic shopping bags after a contentious debate over whether the state was going too far in trying to regulate personal choice.

The Democratic bill, which failed late Tuesday, would have been the first statewide ban, although a few California cities already prohibit their use.

…The bill, AB1998, called for the ban to take effect in supermarkets and large retail stores in 2012. It would have applied to smaller stores in 2013.

Republicans and some Democrats opposed it, saying it would add an extra burden on consumers and businesses at a time when many already are struggling financially.

…The Senate took final action at the very end of the legislative session, reflecting how difficult it had been to muster support. The bill received just 14 votes in the Senate, seven short of the majority it needed.

The inconvenient truth is that the eco-propaganda about plastic bag perils is so much hype. Don’t take it from me. Take it from environmental scientists themselves:

“The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no base in scientific evidence,” said Lord Taverne, the chairman of Sense about Science. “This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive. Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it doesn’t achieve anything.”

Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, the Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals.

They “don’t figure” in the majority of cases where animals die from marine debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject. Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste produce. “Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement,” he said. “The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”

He added: “The impact of bags on whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals ranges from nil for most species to very minor for perhaps a few species.For birds, plastic bags are not a problem either.”

The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags.

Fifteen years later in 2002, when the Australian government commissioned a report into the effects of plastic bags, its authors misquoted the Newfoundland study, mistakenly attributing the deaths to “plastic bags.”

The figure was latched on to by conservationists as proof that the bags were killers. For four years the “typo” remained uncorrected. It was only in 2006 that the authors altered the report, replacing “plastic bags” with “plastic debris”. But they admitted: “The actual numbers of animals killed annually by plastic bag litter is nearly impossible to determine.”

In a postscript to the correction they admitted that the original Canadian study had referred to fishing tackle, not plastic debris, as the threat to the marine environment.

Regardless, the erroneous claim has become the keystone of a widening campaign to demonise plastic bags.

David Santillo, a marine biologist at Greenpeace, told the Times that bad science was undermining the government’s case for banning the bags. “It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags,” he said. “The evidence shows just the opposite. We are not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags. “It doesn’t do the government’s case any favours if you’ve got statements being made that aren’t supported by the scientific literature that’s out there. With larger mammals it’s fishing gear that’s the big problem. On a global basis plastic bags aren’t an issue. It would be great if statements like these weren’t made.”

Automatic Data Processing is a payroll giant that cuts checks to employees. The company publishes a national employment report with Macroeconomic Advisers. Its latest stats show that the nation lost 10,000 private sector jobs last month. It’s not what economists expected. Via the WSJ:

Economists had expected ADP to report a jobs gain of 17,000 in August. The estimated change in employment for July was revised to a gain of 37,000 from an increase of 42,000 first reported. The ADP survey tallies only private-sector jobs, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ nonfarm payroll data, to be released Friday, include government workers. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expect that continued layoffs of government workers hired temporarily for the Census will mean a drop of 110,000 jobs from total August nonfarm payrolls. Among those economists forecasting private-sector jobs within the BLS data, the median projection is for a gain of just 28,000.

The ADP number may cause some forecasters to change their Friday expectations. The August unemployment rate is projected to edge up to 9.6% from 9.5% in July.

The reasons for weak job growth? The WSJ cites “market volatility, regulatory uncertainty and weak demand has curtailed economic growth” and “business concerns on regulations, taxes and future health-care costs, plus job mismatch,” and lack of demand.

A separate jobs report by Challenger is getting positive spin: “Announced U.S. Job Cuts Fell 55% From Year Ago.” But: “While companies are cutting fewer workers from payrolls, larger job gains are needed to bolster consumer spending and sustain the recovery. Waning demand and concern over the economic outlook are causing companies and policy makers to cut their forecasts for growth.”

***

Related: Results from an economists’ survey show that most favor extension of the Bush tax cuts on capital gains and dividends. And this:

“Fully three-quarters of economists said Congress shouldn’t enact another stimulus package to jumpstart growth.”

Departing Obama economic adviser Christine Romer digs in: White House economist calls for more stimulus.

“The world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. I will take no options off the table in dealing with this potential Iranian threat.“ –Barack Obama.

What better way to prove he is not a Muslim than for President Barack Obama to strike at the heart of the Middle East? And what better way to reflate the economy, unite the nation and secure America’s future energy needs? It’s a grand slam and the White House knows it.

Then again, Iran is making it easy for Obama to get his war. Tehran’s leaders appear to have graduated from the Adolf Hitler School of Diplomacy. The day after announcing the start-up of Iran’s Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pulled a cover away from an aircraft called the Karrar and announced it was Iran’s first long-range drone. Not so subtly the Iranians have coined it, “The Ambassador of Death”.

Furthermore says Ahmadinejad, “Enemies know well that Iran is an invincible fortress and I do not believe the U.S. masters of the Zionists will allow the regime to take any measures against Iran.”

Not so quick President Mahmoud. The last leader that questioned an American President’s will for war was the leader of your next door neighbor. That president, named Saddam, saw not one but two wars with the United States; one initiated by the father, the other by the son.

All this has left the United States and Israel hinting war with Iran. Washington and Jerusalem are disconcerted after the Islamic Republic has shown off all its weaponry; everything from new mini-submarines to a surface-to-surface missile. Tehran has even announced plans to launch high-altitude satellites over the next three years.

The Truth Behind The Exit From Iraq
In August the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen said the U.S. has a plan in place to attack Iran, if it is necessary. Executing this plan no doubt calls for the U.S. to shuffle its overseas assets, including its standing army in Iraq. It is no coincidence that within a week of Mullen’s comments, Obama touted his planned withdrawal, saying: “As a candidate for President, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end… Shortly after taking office; I announced our new strategy… for a transition to full Iraqi responsibility. And I made it clear that by Aug. 31, 2010, America’s combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing — as promised, on schedule.”

The Obama administration and mainstream media have celebrated the Iraq withdrawal announcement as if it were V-E Day.

The truth, says Stephen Lendman, OpEdNews: “Unmentioned was combat readiness remaining, paramilitary army additions replacing those leaving, shifting Iraq forces to Afghanistan, increasing hostilities against Pakistan, committing daily war crimes throughout the region, planning more conflicts ahead, continuing America’s permanent war agenda.”

More conflicts likely means Battlefield Iran. But Iran won’t be the pushover the way Iraq was with its low-tech static defense. Richard Clarke, counterterrorism advisor in the White House under three administrations, says that short of an all out nuclear strike the U.S. cannot win a war against Iran.

“After a long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favorably for the United States,” said Clarke, pointing out that the Pentagon’s planners have war-gamed an attack on Iran several times in the past 15 years, and simply can’t generate a non-nuclear scenario where the U.S. wins.

Unlike Iraq, Iran has much higher tech weaponry than Soviet Union throwaways like the 1960s designed T-72 tank. Also there are some 80 million people in Iran, the great majority of them religious zealots who would throw themselves in the face of a foreign invasion.

Iran is mountainous and vast; four times the size of Iraq. Furthermore, the Iranian army numbers 450,000 combat troops, only slightly smaller than the U.S. Army whose troops are scattered across the globe and must be on alert for other enemies.

According to Gwynne Dyer, a syndicated columnist and military historian, if the White House were to propose anything larger than minor military incursions along Iran’s south coast, senior American generals would resign in protest. “Without the option of a land war, the only lever the United States would have on Iranian policy is the threat of yet more bombs — but if they aren’t nuclear, then they aren’t very persuasive,” wrote Dyer in Straight.com.

Obama Hawks Set To Wade Into War
That’s not to say there aren’t some in America and even some in the Obama administration itself that are itching to go to strike Iran. Earlier this summer The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a collection of neoconservatives, hawks and neoliberal interventionists, began calling on the President to make war preparations against Iran. Two prominent BPC members, former Senator Chuck Robb and retired General Charles Wald, concluded in a July op-ed in The Washington Post that, “current trends suggest that Iran could achieve nuclear weapons capability before the end of this year.”

To meet this threat Robb and Wald advocate that the Obama administration begin an immediate military buildup for war. They suggest a plan that will include a “targeted strike on Tehran’s nuclear and supporting military facilities.”

The BPC has supporters within the Obama administration including Dennis Ross, currently Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Central Region of the National Security Council and who was one of the “original task force members” of the BPC’s bomb-Iran planning group. Ross and other neoconservatives in the Obama administration are itching to bomb Iran for military and strategic reasons. But I suspect there are others in the administration that want war for purely political reasons.

First and foremost is the President’s loss of support going into the fall Congressional elections, including musings that the President may not have been born a U.S. citizen and may in fact be a Muslim. Just as LBJ believed waging war on Vietnam would stem Republican criticisms that he was a dove, so too, Obama might think that waging war against Iran will answer any questions about his leadership and loyalties.

There are also strategic arguments to going to war with Iran. Iran is the defacto leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, having wrestled control from Saudi Arabia more than a decade ago. It carries the biggest stick on a patch of ground that contains two-thirds of the world’s conventional petroleum reserves. Iran’s control of the world’s oil supplies gives American strategic planners nightmares.

Countdown To War
Desperate times mean desperate measures. But make no mistake; this war could be much more devastating to the U.S. and the world than any war since World War II. There is the real potential that an isolated conflict will spread and perhaps engulf China and Russia.

Each passing week, as Obama slips in the polls and Tehran rattles its sabers, the prospects for war grow; a war that will no doubt drive up oil and gold prices. But also a war whose final outcome may be so devastating that few will enjoy the profits they reap.

Yours for real wealth and good health,

John Myers
Myers’ Energy and Gold Report