Links to Global Warming Deniers and Some Revealing Facts About Them

[The following links were sent to me by someone who believes the issue of Global Warming is still up for debate -- these are links she sent to prove, as she says, "In all fairness, 10s of 1,000s of climatologists and other scientists reject the concept of global warming as presented in Al Gore's movie." I've followed her links by my research into who they are, who's funding them, etc.]

I repeat here a small list of Exxon-Mobil funded 'scientists' that appear over and over again in the 'literature' that is supposed to prove Global Warming is either not happening or is not caused by human activity, as reported by Mother Jones News. Every denier I've researched has been shown to be on the payroll of corporate interests (mostly oil and gas), is not an expert in the appropriate field, has done questionable to downright dishonest 'science,' if any, or has in some other way disqualified themselves from being taken seriously. According to Wikipeda, there seem to be far less than 10's of thousands of scientists who deny global warming -- they list anywhere from eleven-a couple of dozen ("Only scientists with a record of scholarship are included, and they must have been making specific statements, not merely participating in a poll or survey of opinion. This list is intended to be comprehensive, but is likely to be incomplete."). Here is a partial list:

SALLIE BALIUNAS, a Harvard-Smithsonian Institute astrophysicist, has, along with colleague
WILLIE SOON, been giving deniers scientific cover since the mid-1990s. They began by claiming solar effects could account for the rise of the global thermostat. After that theory was debunked, Baliunas and Soon wrote a paper-partially funded by the American Petroleum Institute-for Climate Research that claimed that the 20th century hasn’t been all that warm. Their conclusions have been praised as the epitome of “sound science” by deniers, including Sen. James Inhofe. The journal’s editor, meanwhile, said the paper should never have been published. Baliunas and Soon are each connected to at least four ExxonMobil-funded groups.
PAUL DRIESSEN: ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least five.
PATRICK MICHAELS: Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least seven.
STEVEN MILLOY [of JunkScience.com]: Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least five."
S. FRED SINGER: A godfather of global warming denial, Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least seven.

http://www.oism.org/oism/s32p686.htm --
The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) ... is headed by Arthur B. Robinson, an eccentric scientist who has a long history of controversial entanglements with figures on the fringe of accepted research.
[more on them below]
from: SourceWatch.org

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=052406F --
Tech Central Station.com is a news site associated with the Tech Central Science Foundation, which received $95,000 funding from Exxon-Mobil; Baliunas is a commentator; Soon is the science director; and Milloy is a contributing writer. Run by former FoxNews.com editor and hosted by an AEI fellow.

TCS is published by the DCI Group, "a prominent Washington public affairs firm specializing in P.R., lobbying, and so-called 'Astroturf' organizing, generally on behalf of corporations, GOP politicians, and the occasional Third-World despot." Corporate funders of Tech Central Station include AT&T, Avue Technologies, The Coca-Cola Company, General Motors Corporation, Intel, McDonalds, Merck, Microsoft, Nasdaq, PhRMA, and Qualcomm (Tech Central Station website).
from: ExxonSecrets.org

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm --
The Oregon Petition, sponsored by the OISM, was circulated in April 1998 in a bulk mailing to tens of thousands of U.S. scientists. In addition to the petition, the mailing included what appeared to be a reprint of a scientific paper. Authored by OISM's Arthur B. Robinson, Sallie L. Baliunas, Willie Soon, and Zachary W. Robinson, [the petition was designed to give] some persons the impression that Robinson's paper was an official publication of the [National Academy of Sciences]' peer-reviewed journal. The blatant editorializing in the pseudopaper, however, was uncharacteristic of scientific papers, [and had nothing] to do with the National Academy of Sciences. Robinson was not even a climate scientist. He was a biochemist with no published research in the field of climatology, and his paper had never been subjected to peer review by anyone with training in the field. In fact, the paper had never been accepted for publication anywhere, let alone in the NAS Proceedings. It was self-published by Robinson, who did the typesetting himself on his own computer. (It was subsequently published as a "review" in Climate Research, which contributed to an editorial scandal at that publication.) The NAS issued an unusually blunt formal response to the petition drive. "The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy."

Robinson's paper claimed to show that pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is actually a good thing. "As atmospheric CO2 increases," it stated, "plant growth rates increase. Also, leaves lose less water as CO2 increases, so that plants are able to grow under drier conditions. Animal life, which depends upon plant life for food, increases proportionally." As a result, Robinson concluded, industrial activities can be counted on to encourage greater species biodiversity and a greener planet. [excuse me while my head explodes - Marilyn]
from: SourceWatch.org

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st285/ --
National Center for Policy Analysis has received $390,900 from ExxonMobil since 1998. Adjunct Scholar, S. FRED SINGER: Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least seven. Founded in 1983, NCPA acts as an organizer for other conservative groups as well as conducting its own free-market oriented public policy analysis on issues such as health care, social security, fiscal policy, and the environment.

NCPA has an "E-Team" that analyzes environmental policy. The global warming "experts" on the team are climate skeptics who opposed the Kyoto Protocol and continue to oppose any regulation of greenhouse gasses.
from: ExxonSecrets.org

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2006/20060623155710.aspx --
a branch of the right-wing Media Research Center. "...it is [Brent] Bozell's Media Research Center that stands out as the right's preeminent media cop. Bozell is a Republican operative with credentials earned in George Bush's 1988 presidential campaign. The nephew of William F. Buckley, he headed the Conservative Victory Committee that year. He is also connected to the Political Club for Growth, a network of conservative and libertarian activists and groups sympathetic to cutting taxes and shrinking government.

What Bozell and others perceive as liberal bias often means presenting information about government help for the poor, the homeless, the weak, and so on -- information that conflicts with the objectives of the right."
from: MediaTransparency.org

http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=357 --
Both Baliunas and Soon worked with Frederick Seitz at the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank where Seitz served as executive director. Funded by a number of right-wing foundations, including Scaife and Bradley, the George C. Marshall Institute does not conduct any original research. It is a conservative think tank that was initially founded during the years of the Reagan administration to advocate funding for Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative--the "Star Wars" weapons program. ... Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the Marshall Institute has adapted to the times by devoting much of its firepower to the war against environmentalism, and in particular against the "scaremongers" who raise warnings about global warming.
from: SourceWatch.org

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/cause.htm --
I could spend a lot of time debunking this 'article' point-by-point. I'd rather not waste my time, but really, apply your critical thinking skills and question each statement as you read it -- I think you'll see what I mean. Or see below for more info on them.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=%5CNation%5Carchive%5C200409%5CNAT20040915c.html --
"The Cybercast News Service (also CNSNews.com) is a conservative news website founded on June 16, 1998 by the Media Research Center, a media watchdog group. Originally calling itself the "Conservative News Service," CNS changed its name to Cybercast in 2000. CNS sees its role as serving an audience which puts a "higher premium on balance than spin" by covering stories that mainstream news organizations ignore.

...Unsurprisingly, CNS itself has been accused of having its own bias. ConWebWatch, a website set up to challenge possible biases in politically conservative news sources, accuses CNS, among others, of engaging in the same tactics as the "liberal media" they criticize:
In reality, these sites are no less slanted or arrogant than they accuse the "mainstream" media of being. They demonstrate time and again that, despite promoting themselves with words like "fairness," "responsibility," "accuracy" and "balance," their real goal is to attack and discredit anyone who doesn’t agree with them, as well as to promote their own political views -- the same exact thing they accuse the "liberal" media of doing
from: Wikipedia.org

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ --
"The Junk Science Page is not about junk science so much as it is about anything which does not support a conservative or libertarian political agenda for businesses and industries that do not like regulations that limit their ability to pollute or poison us or our environment. Milloy uses the term 'junk science' mainly as a political and polemical term. What the majority of scientists call sound science, Milloy usually calls junk science. And what he calls 'sound science', the majority of scientists usually call junk science.
...
In short, the Junk Science page has some valid analyses sprinkled amongst its propaganda, but overall the page is deceptive. There's nothing wrong with having a political agenda, and there is certainly nothing wrong with being concerned that the government is spending its resources on the wrong projects, and there is nothing wrong with being critical of the work of scientists, but there is something wrong with pretending to care about science and truth, while labeling scientists who produce work contrary to your agenda as doing junk science. But don't take my word for it. Just look at the list of scientists that Mr. Milloy considers to be junk scientists: nearly every person on his hit list has done a study with potential political implications that offend his political agenda."
from: http://skepdic.com/refuge/junkscience.html

Hired Hack 'Scientists' and Global Warming

Many partisan organizations have been created over the past (at least) 25 years as disinformation specialists, whose job it is to obfuscate the facts, and create a perception that the facts are in doubt. A lot of moneyed interests want to prevent any policies that would keep them from dumping more CO2 into the atmosphere.

Facts are not fair; they just are. In the interest of fairness, is it fair that paid hack 'scientists' promote ideas meant to confound the public into doing things against their best interest or not doing things for their best interest, all to benefit corporate interests? How many times has this happened in the past? Remember when the big tobacco companies perjured themselves about the addictive & harmful effects of cigarettes, and were deliberately working on increasing that addictiveness? Remember Love Canal? The list of corporate crimes is seemingly endless, but of the top 100 corporate crimes of the 1990's, 38 were environmental crimes.

Here's a fact: an environmental group recently estimated that ExxonMobil Corp. and the products it makes have been responsible for roughly five percent of the world's manmade carbon dioxide emissions since 1882.

Here's another fact: Exxon-Mobil has spent over $12 million dollars funding think tanks to obfuscate the idea of global warming in the minds of the average American.

"ExxonMobil has funded dozens of front groups, think tanks, industry associations, corporate-friendly research centers, and purportedly independent scientists to spread its denialism. Greenpeace has documented the company’s support for a web of more than 100 organizations - from the American Council on Science and Health to the Washington Legal Foundation - that work to cast doubt on global warming science and likely consequences."
"The company has also collaborated with the administration on the basic denialism project. A former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute and chief of staff of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, Philip Cooney, resigned in June 2005 after the New York Times revealed he had edited government reports to challenge the link between carbon emissions and global warming. A week later, Cooney was on ExxonMobil’s payroll."

Buying policy is apparently cheaper than doing the right thing.

For example, Koch Industries, the largest privately-held oil company in the United States, has financed a network of conservative nonprofit organizations designed to influence policy debate in this country."

Many of the same key “skeptics” show up again and again in the echo chamber funded by ExxonMobil:

Here are some other good sources for finding out who's related to whom in the field of global warming (and more) obfuscation:
Media Transparency: Recipients -- tracks the impact of conservative philanthropy on the media - recipients of conservative funding.
Media Transparency: Funders -- tracks the impact of conservative philanthropy on the media - funders.
ExxonSecrets.org -- Documenting Exxon-Mobil's funding of climate change skeptics.
SourceWatch - Documents public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests.
Center for Media and Democracy -- Investigates and exposes public relations spin and propaganda, and promotes media literacy and citizen journalism.
ConWebWatch -- dedicated to analysis and critique of conservative Web-based journalism.
CorporateCrimeReporter -- Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the Decade (1990's)
The Center for Corporate Policy -- a non-profit, non-partisan public interest organization working to curb corporate abuses and make corporations publicly accountable.
from the Center for Public Integrity -- Post-War Contractors Ranked by Total Contract Value in Iraq and Afghanistan
from CommonDreams --The Ten Worst Corporations of 2005
Big Oil Protects its Interests --
Industry spends hundreds of millions on lobbying, elections
Front groups -- List of example front groups from SourceWatch.org

Global warming is a scientific issue that's been politicized

Global warming is a scientific issue that's been politicized, due to social and economic implications. Sadly, currently..."environmental policy is based on what profits there are to be gained or lost today, without attention paid to what the immeasurable long-term costs will be to the shared resource of our environment."

Certain facts about global warming have been established through true scientific methods, published in peer review journals, and are accepted by the vast majority of scientists doing work in the field. "Scientific methods are impersonal. Thus, whatever one scientist is able to do qua scientist, any other scientist should be able to duplicate. ...When scientists cannot duplicate the work of another scientist that is a clear sign that the scientist has erred either in design, methodology, observation, calculation, or calibration."

For example, levels of CO2 poured into the atmosphere each day are measurable. The levels of CO2 in the atmosphere correlate directly with global ambient temperature. As far back as scientists have been able to measure, higher levels of CO2 = higher temperatures. They have measured through ice-cores back as far as 450,000 years. Yes, global warming trends happen in cycles, but the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have risen measurably over the past 100-150 years to be significantly higher than all previous highs over the course of the past 450,000 years. They are the highest they have ever been in recorded time.

"On May 2, 2006, the Federal Climate Change Science Program commissioned by the Bush administration in 2002 released the first of 21 assessments which concluded that there is
"clear evidence of human influences on the climate system." The study said that the only factor that could explain the measured warming of Earth's average temperature over the last 50 years was the buildup of heat-trapping gases, which are mainly emitted by burning coal and oil."

Actually, "There have not been any such scientists since 2001 who express the opinion that evidence of global warming is inconclusive or who are skeptical that temperatures have risen the 0.6 ± 0.2 °C as advanced by the IPCC."

The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue.

More comprehenisve info regarding scientific opinion on global warming.

Scientists who oppose the idea of human contribution to global warming (note that several of these are among the list of scientists who engage in questionable scientific methods, and are funded by Exxon-Mobil).

"...conclusions that greenhouse gases are causing the planet to heat up are the result of the "most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history.

"The contradictory statements of a tiny handful of discredited scientists, funded by big coal and big oil, represent a deliberate -- and extremely reckless -- campaign of deception and disinformation."

The whole point, as stated by the National Academy of Sciences, is that "greenhouse warming poses a potential threat sufficient to merit prompt responses. Investment in mitigation measures acts as insurance protection against the great uncertainties and the possibility of dramatic surprises."

More on "An Inconvenient Truth"

[The following I wrote in response to an email I received telling me about a scientist (an astronomer) who doesn't believe human activity has anything to do with global warming].

There is a very small minority of actual scientists who believe human activity has had no effect on global warming, though of course there are some, and they are often pimping for corporations, or ideologues who have not done true empirical research in the field of climatology and atmosphereic science (in fact, here's a link to a chart that shows many of the 'think tanks' that dispute global warming, and their connections to the energy corporations: http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/05/exxon_chart.html ). There's a lot of intentional disinformation out there, so you have to decide for yourself who's telling the truth, if their truth is based on facts, and what, if anything, you want to do about it.

Before sending out my encouragement to see the movie, I started checking out whether the 'facts' presented in the movie seemed to be true or false, and I believe my research is pointing to them being true.

But see the movie, look at the charts, start doing your own research. The chart I was most amazed by is a prettier version of the 4th chart on this page (sorry I haven't yet found a better, clearer version of this chart): http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/etc/graphs.html (Graph showing a 450,000 year record of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the earth's atmosphere). I'd love to hear your friend's explanation of that enormous spike at present-time that shows the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to be enormously higher than all previous *highs* over the past 450,000 years.

There was a time when 99% (or more) of people thought the earth was flat. Their being wrong about that didn't have as much of a consequence as those in charge being wrong about this does, if they are in fact wrong.

Wanna take that chance? It's the only planet we've got....

Personally, I have no dog in this hunt, other than my sense of personal responsibility to not leave things worse than they were when I got here. And I apologize to everyone younger than me that I couldn't be more effective in leaving you a better place to live. All I can do is educate myself on the important issues, not let myself be fooled by the emperors with no clothes, take the small environmentally sound actions I'm capable of taking, talk to people, and vote my conscience. I do what I can...and I hope you younger folks can figure out how to make things better for yourselves and your children.

At any rate, I just wanted to encourage people to go see the movie, because I believe it effectively shows a lot of facts, well-presented, for a very tiny investment of your time and money, that will help educate you about what might be the most important trend on our planet today.

An Inconvenient Truth

Just wanted to say, having just seen this movie, if you live on this planet, you owe it to yourselves, your children and any future generations you may hope for to see this movie. It may be the most important hour and 1/2 worth of information you can watch. It's not political, and shows in a very graphic way both a very disturbing present and more disturbing future if we keep on the path we're on and ways we can avert what may seem to be an inevitable world tragedy. Truly, the graphs and photographic evidence presented so well here with such great explanations are shocking -- and I thought I was fairly well informed. Apparently, not so much...


If you don't live on this planet, continue to listen to the 53% of media who claim global warming isn't happening and not to the nearly 100% of legitimate scientists who say that it is, for what have you got to lose?

Last Day to Tell EAC: We Want Voter-Verified Paper Ballots!

The public comment period is ending on draft voting system guidelines which will govern how voting systems are configured and evaluated in the US. It expires TODAY, FRIDAY September 30.

Take this opportunity to tell the Election Assistance Commission: Voter-verified paper records should be mandatory for all voting systems.

All elections must be audited for accuracy; but unless that audit uses a voter-verified paper record to check the machines are functioning correctly, it's not a legitimate audit. No electronic record can meet that standard, nor any reprint unseen by the voter. The EAC has the authority to define the manual audit trail: it must be a voter-verified paper record.

Other important recommendations:

1. No wireless networking (or wireless capability of any kind) in any voting system
2. Clarify terms: voter-verified paper audit trails are not the same as voter-verified paper ballots, and standards written for one may not apply to the other.
3. Certification must be tougher for security. Adopt Resolution #17-05 for more stringent testing of voting systems.
4. Allow interoperability - voting systems from different vendors should be able to work together more freely, saving costs.

Click on the link (in the title) above to send a letter to the EAC Commissioners.

[For more info on these recommendations, see http://www.verifiedvoting.org/downloads/EAC%20Guidelines%20Notes.pdf ]

Some Notes from "Orwell Rolls in His Grave"

"I can see that your head has been twisted and fed

with worthless foam from the mouth."

-- Bob Dylan, "Ramona"

Saw this movie this past weekend. "Orwell Rolls in His Grave" is a documentary that explains how "...America is under an Orwellian watch with the rise to prominence of the radical, right-wing Republican party, an ascent aided...by the mainstream media." A full, better description is here: http://www.orwellrollsinhisgrave.com/synopsis.htm

This movie has further helped me to see the bigger picture -- the real agenda of the right-wing (further enriching the super-rich at the expense of the middle class) and how they use 'hot-button issues' to get the little guy riled up and voting for them, etc. All the things we argue about with the other side of our families and friends are mostly just diversions, while the rich are busy screwing all of us equally.

Took some notes from the extra interviews on the DVD; here they are (some of these are straight quotes, some paraphrased, depending on how fast I could write -- so my thanks to those who contributed to this movie, and my apologies if I didn't get all the words transcribed correctly. I think I mostly got the gist of the meaning, though I certainly didn't cover all that was said, by any means...):

from Tony Benn (former Labour MP and Cabinet Minister):

He mentioned how astonished he was to learn that Clinton was elected by only 20% of the populace (and of course, George W. by far fewer percent than that), because so many were not registered, or did not vote or voted for one of the other guys. "If people don't vote, it destroys the legitimacy of the government that IS elected, and THAT is the moment at which the hard right picks up."

He talked about how the German people were unemployed and depressed in the 30's, and how Hitler was able to use that to gain prominence: "They went for the man who had a scapegoat."

"Democracy," he says, "requires a well-informed and understanding people with clear ideas which they wish to see represented." But now we're being 'managed' and not represented.

Charles Lewis (Founder and former Director of the Center for Public Integrity):

"A lot of guys in politics get paid a lot of money to manipulate media."

...it's a conundrum for we who are frustrated with the news media. News execs say 'Look at the numbers!' It's prurient, sensational crap that sells the most. The media is NOT into disseminating information. There's no sense of media responsibility. It's "legal corruption."

Robert McChesney (writer, professor and media-access advocate who is critical of corporate concentration and control of media):

Head of the FCC under Clinton was told by former FCC heads," You're referring fights between the super-rich and the super-super rich." You have to let each side win a little bit from time to time. [btw, the FCC is supposed to be in the business of regulating the public airwaves, which we all pay for as taxpayers. Though the public part of their mission seems to have disappeared from their mission statement. Read their current strategic goals: http://www.fcc.gov/omd/strategicplan/ ].

Vertical integration - where a company owns all the different layers of an industry: i.e., with movies -- both production and distribution (and if they also own the TV and radio stations, promotion). This makes it very hard for there to be a competitor, as they have to invest in and compete on all the same levels.

The huge myth of our society is that it's based on competition. That's just the pablum they serve the bottom fishes (i.e., you and me). The top of the system is crushing competition.

Horizontal integration - bad for the public; good for big conglomerates. They hyper-commercialize content. Grotesque commercialization.

1996 Telecommunications Act-- media wanted to keep the public from hearing about it. And mostly did. Congress doled out $70 billion for free airwaves for the mega corporations, while cutting out foodstamps for the poor.

Government creates the giants, built around monopolies.

Murdoch -- Fox news doesn't DO journalism, just pontification. CNN was trying to do journalism (and they were doing well); but FOX showed you could make much huger profits without actual journalists doing actual news. So, in 2000, CNN got rid of their head guy.

Read "The Media Monopoly."

Media manipulation is a science. The agenda of the free market -- to enrich the few and screw over the many. Their agenda -- to lower taxes for the rich and slash social services for the middle class. They do it by finding other 'hot-button' issues to run on (because people would never vote for this agenda if they were aware of it, of course!) -- issues like patriotism, racism, abortion, gay rights. Don't ever talk about the whole underlying purpose of their agenda. [it's been interesting to watch how they are now using the tragedy of Katrina as a further excuse to push their agenda -- see if you can't find this agenda in every new proposal the right-wing makes.]

They have re-defined the left and the right, and dropped all the core issues from the discussion.

They've defined Liberal as:

• ivy-league intellectual
• for gay rights
• for abortion rights
• hoighty-toighty
• does not attend church

And conservative as:

• hard-working
• beer-drinking
• often Catholic
• white
• church-going
• believe in America and kicking ass

However, both political parties are in bed with the military.

All conservative money goes into organizations to conduct ideological warfare and to move the debate to the right.

The right has trained more conservatives to become 'journalists.' They've built up an armada of journalists, a farm-system.

Plus, they help sound convincing by giving 'sources.' Starting in the 70's, they created such institutions as the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute -- all very well-funded with $$ from the super-rich right-wingers (like Richard Mellon-Scaife, etc.). So, those from these institutes become "experts on the issues" and are now employed as media sources. They can really influence the news.

There's so much more in the movie. I can't recommend it highly enough!!! Really, you owe it to yourself to rent this ASAP! http://www.orwellrollsinhisgrave.com/index.htm

Arctic ice 'disappearing fast'

By Richard Black Environment Correspondent, BBC News website

The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk for a fourth consecutive year, according to new data released by US scientists.

They say that this month sees the lowest extent of ice cover for more than a century. The Arctic climate varies naturally, but the researchers conclude that human-induced global warming is at least partially responsible.

They warn the shrinkage could lead to even faster melting in coming years.
...
The current rate of shrinkage they calculate at 8% per decade; at this rate there may be no ice at all during the summer of 2060.
...
Though there are significant variations across the region, on average the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, according to a major report released last year.

"What we're seeing is a process in which we start to lose ice cover during the summer," he said, "so areas which formerly had ice are now open water, which is dark. "These dark areas absorb a lot of the Sun's energy, much more than the ice; and what happens then is that the oceans start to warm up, and it becomes very difficult for ice to form during the following autumn and winter.

"It looks like this is exactly what we're seeing - a positive feedback effect, a 'tipping-point'." The idea behind tipping-points is that at some stage the rate of global warming would accelerate, as rising temperatures break down natural restraints or trigger environmental changes which release further amounts of greenhouse gases.

Read the rest at the above link.

America Has Fallen to a Jacobin Coup

By Paul Craig Roberts09/16/05 "ICH" -- --

The most important casualties of September 11 are respect for truth and American liberty. Propaganda has replaced deliberation based on objective assessment of fact. The resurrection of the Star Chamber has made moot the legal protections of liberty.

The US invasion of Iraq was based on the deliberate suppression of fact. The invasion was not the result of mistaken intelligence. It was based on deliberately concocted "intelligence" designed to deceive the US Congress, the American public, and the United Nations.

In an interview with Barbara Walters on ABC News, General Colin Powell, who was Secretary of State at the time of the invasion, expressed dismay that he was the one who took the false information to the UN and presented it to the world. The weapons of mass destruction speech, he said, is a "blot" on his record. The full extent of the deception was made clear by the leaked top secret "Downing Street Memos."

Two and one-half years after the March 2003 invasion, the US Congress and the American people still do not know the reason Iraq was invaded. The US is bogged down in an expensive and deadly combat, and no one outside the small circle of neoconservatives who orchestrated the war knows the reason why. Many guesses are rendered – oil, removal of Israel’s enemy – but the Bush administration has never disclosed its real agenda, which it cloaked with the WMD deception.

This itself is powerful indication that American democracy is dead. With the exception of rightwing talk radio, everyone in America now knows that the invasion of Iraq was based on false information. Yet, 40 percent of the public and both political parties in Congress still support the ongoing war.

The CIA has issued a report that the war is working only for Osama bin Laden. The unprovoked American aggression against Iraq, the horrors perpetrated against Muslims in Abu Ghraib prison, and the slaughter and mistreatment of Iraqi noncombatants, have radicalized the Muslim world and elevated bin Laden from a fringe figure to a leader opposed to American hegemony in the Middle East. The chaos created in Iraq by the US military has provided al Qaeda with superb training grounds for insurgency and terrorism. Despite overwhelming evidence that the "war on terror" is in fact a war for terror, Republicans still cheer when Bush says we have to "fight them over there" so they don’t come "over here."

If fact played any role in the decision to continue with this war, the US would not be spending hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars to provide recruits and training for al Qaeda, to radicalize Muslims, and to destroy trust in the United States both abroad and among its own citizens.

The article gets better (if you can call it that)...read the rest at the above link.

After Blocking the Bridge, Gretna Circles the Wagons

Long wary of next-door New Orleans, the town stands by its decision to bar the city's evacuees.
by Nicholas Riccardi

GRETNA, Louisiana - Little over a week after this mostly white suburb became a symbol of callousness for using armed officers to seal one of the last escape routes from New Orleans — trapping thousands of mostly black evacuees in the flooded city — the Gretna City Council passed a resolution supporting the police chief's move.

Also See: GretnaSucks.com
GRETNA POLICE BLOCKED FLEEING VICTIMSThe Crescent City Connection bridges that cross the Mississippi River into downtown New Orleans, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2005. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)"This wasn't just one man's decision," Mayor Ronnie C. Harris said Thursday. "The whole community backs it."

Three days after Hurricane Katrina hit, Gretna officers blocked the Mississippi River bridge that connects their city to New Orleans, exacerbating the sometimes troubled relationship with their neighbor. The blockade remained in place into the Labor Day weekend.

Gretna (pop. 17,500) is a feisty blue-collar city, two-thirds white, that prides itself on how quickly its police respond to 911 calls; it warily eyes its neighbor, a two-thirds black city (pop. about 500,000) that is also a perennial contender for the murder capital of the U.S.

Itself deprived of power, water and food for days after Katrina struck Aug. 29, Gretna suddenly became the destination for thousands of people fleeing New Orleans. The smaller town bused more than 5,000 of the newcomers to an impromptu food distribution center miles away. As New Orleans residents continued to spill into Gretna, tensions rose.

After someone set the local mall on fire Aug. 31, Gretna Police Chief Arthur S. Lawson Jr. proposed the blockade.

Read the res at the above link.

Bush Library would be too darned close to Deep Eddy Cabaret, by John Kelso

by John Kelso

I'm having a little trouble with the concept of putting George W. Bush's presidential library in hippie dippie Austin.

For one thing, will this library have actual books in it? And if so, why? Why in God's name would a George W. Bush library contain reading material? This is too much irony even for me. Who's going to read to him? He doesn't like reading, so you know he's not going to read this stuff himself.
...
Instead, why not put the money into the George W. Bush Presidential Game Room and Big Screen TV? I think he'd be much happier there. And you could probably do the whole remodel for under $30,000.

Or, since it's Bush, instead of a library, how about the George W. Bush Frat House Museum? An interactive establishment, every time you go in the door, somebody throws a beer mug against the wall. I'd visit a presidential museum like that. Heck, I might even make a donation to help build the thing.

The UT System is offering three locations for the Bush library -- two in Dallas, and the third one in Austin on Lake Austin Boulevard next to Deep Eddy Cabaret.

This is really bad feng shui. You just don't put a presidential library next to a beer joint. It ends up giving the beer joint a bad name. ...

read the rest at the above link.

Timeline of Katrina: What Happened When

Katrina: What Happened When
It will take months to get the full story, but meanwhile here are some of the key facts about what happened and when officials acted.

Summary

Multiple investigations are likely into the response by federal, state, and local officials to the disastrous flooding of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. New facts are still emerging, and we expect it will be months or years before a full picture can be properly assessed.
In response to numerous requests, we present here a brief timeline of events, as best as we can document them from public records and the best news reporting from the scene. We do not blame or excuse anyone, and leave it to others to judge what, if anything, could or should have been done differently. All times are converted to Central Daylight Time.

Check the link above for the full timeline.

"If New Orleans were dry" by Michael Ventura

Excellent column by Michael Ventura in this week's Austin Chronicle (excerpt):

"If our leaders are criminals that should come as no surprise, for we live on theft. We've invented polite words for our theft ("capitalism," "the global economy," "the free market"), but in fact it takes a lot of muscle and legalized theft for 5% of Earth's population to gobble 50% of its resources. Our way of life is a criminal enterprise, and it takes criminals to run it. For more than a century we've depended upon thinly veiled criminality for our good fortune, and we damn well are implicated.

Which is the underlying reason most Americans want to know nothing about their governance. To know would be to admit responsibility. To admit responsibility would put one in the moral dilemma of either taking action toward a more just world and thereby ultimately undermining one's own prosperity, or ignoring it all in the desperate attempt to live happily ever after. Many will believe anything that allows their fearful desperation to pose as righteous happiness. Any lie is welcome, and those who point out the lies are mightily resented. Democrats are as loath as Republicans to face the real problem. George W. Bush and the right-wing cabals cause tremendous and needless suffering, but they are not the fundamental problem. The problem is the way we sustain ourselves. The way we sustain ourselves causes much more suffering than Bush does. The way we sustain ourselves has brought disorder to every corner of the world and undermined the viability of the planet itself. Collectively, we are the maddened coven."

From the Tao te Ching: "Prosperity rests on disaster; disaster is hidden in prosperity."

Read the whole thing at the link above.

Amazing NASA Images of Hurricane Katrina and Damage Wrought

Click on the link above -- very informative!

Bush Disaster

The Adminstration's Gross Negligence

Bill Maher's letter to the prez

Bill Maher's letter to the prez

Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.'