ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Government whistle-blower accuses NOAA of manipulating climate data By Rick Moran

Posted By on February 7th, 2017

John Bates, former principal scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) lab at the National Climatic Data Center, is accusing the agency of cooking the books to disprove the theory that there has been a “pause” in global warming and alleging that the motive for manipulating the data was to buttress the Obama administration’s EPA carbon rules and build support for the Paris Climate Treaty.

To absolutely no one’s surprise.

Washington Times:

In an article on the Climate Etc. blog, John Bates, who retired last year as principal scientist of the National Climatic Data Center, accused the lead author of the 2015 NOAA “pausebuster” report of trying to “discredit” the hiatus through “flagrant manipulation of scientific integrity guidelines and scientific publication standards.”

In addition, Mr. Bates told the Daily [U.K.] Mail that the report’s author, former NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information director Thomas Karl, did so by “insisting on decisions and scientific choices that maximized warming and minimized documentation.”

“Gradually, in the months after [the report] came out, the evidence kept mounting that Tom Karl constantly had his ‘thumb on the scale’ — in the documentation, scientific choices, and release of datasets — in an effort to discredit the notion of a global warming hiatus and rush to time the publication of the paper to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy,” Mr. Bates said Saturday on Climate Etc.

The June 2015 report, “Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus,” which updated the ocean temperature record, was published six months before the U.N.’s Paris summit.

The accusations sparked a fierce back-and-forth Sunday between so-called climate warmists and skeptics over the validity and implications of Mr. Bates’ claim, which he defended on the Climate Etc. blog run by former Georgia Tech climatologist Judith Curry.

Zeke Hausfather, Berkeley Earth climate scientist, said in a Sunday “factcheck” on the CarbonBrief blog that the Karl paper’s conclusions “have been validated by independent data from satellites, buoys and Argo floats and many other independent groups.”

“While NOAA’s data management procedures may well need improvement, their results have been independently validated and agree with separate global temperature records created by other groups,” Mr. Hausfather said, citing Berkeley Earth and the U.K.’s Met Office Hadley Centre.

He said the record “strongly suggests that NOAA got it right and that we have been underestimating ocean warming in recent years.”

Independent analysis in 2015 when the report came out showed this same NOAA conclusion to be a question of giving more weight to sources that showed a rise in temperature as well as fiddling with past data to show a larger rise than was evident in the temperature record. This is exactly what Bates is alleging.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Just What Is the Israel-Palestine Two-State Solution? By Jack Winnick

Posted By on February 7th, 2017

The so-called “Two-State Solution” has been touted for years as the only way to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But time has shown it’s just a land-grab by Israel’s enemies.

The so-called “Two-State Solution” has been touted for many years by Israel’s enemies as the only way to achieve peace. The fundamentals of this “solution” consist of the creation of two new countries. One would comprise the “West Bank,” historically known as Judea and Samaria, and be populated and governed solely by Arabs. As in other Arab countries, Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims would be unwelcome.

The other “country” would comprise the area now known as Israel, but would be open to the return of millions of Arabs as citizens. These “returnees” would include all Arabs who could show any relation to those living in the ill-defined region known as “Palestine” prior to the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.

This, in effect, would mean Israel would have to open its borders to all Arabs in the Levant. The idea of a Jewish homeland would disappear. A nation populated and governed by Arabs would take its place.

The nation of Israel came into existence after a protracted 30-year struggle, beginning with Britain’s 1917 Balfour Declaration, guaranteeing a Jewish homeland within its protectorate. It culminated with a decisive vote in the United Nations in 1947, the same year Pakistan was created as a home for Indian Muslims (the size of the new Jewish State decreased over the intervening years to about 20 percent of that originally proposed in 1918.)

In the 70 years following that vote, Israel has been subjected to three major conflicts, all instigated by its Arab neighbors. The first, the War of Independence, began right after its birth on May 15, 1948 with a coordinated attack by forces from Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt. Few people at that time gave the tiny Jewish nation any chance for survival. Yet thanks to financial and military aid, but not troops, from the United States, it did survive and prosper, miraculously turning a patch of desert with virtually no natural resources into a thriving, productive democracy, home not only to Jews but to Arabs and Christians as well.

The second major conflict was the so-called “Six-Day War,” brought on by troops from Egypt and Syria massed on Israel’s border in early June, 1967. Thanks to a brilliant preemptive strike, Israel was able to survive. Further, because of Jordan’s poorly thought-out attack on West Jerusalem, attempting to wrest control of the Jewish sector, Israel was able to gain control over the whole city and its environs. It also captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria, giving it some measure of protection from future attacks.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Myth of the Trigger-Happy Cop Contrary to public perception, fatal shootings by police officers are relatively rare and have gone down dramatically in places such as New York City By Charles Campisi

Posted By on February 7th, 2017

The seeming surge in fatal shootings by police officers has become one of America’s most divisive issues in recent years. From Ferguson to Baton Rouge, from North Charleston to Minneapolis, from Charlotte to Chicago, communities have been rocked by protests and demonstrations after local police officers shot and killed people, many of them minorities, some completely unarmed. Images of some of the most egregious cases have shocked the national conscience.

As the former chief of internal affairs for the New York Police Department for almost two decades, I was personally involved in the investigation of hundreds of these incidents, including such controversial cases as the 1999 shooting of the unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo and the 2006 shooting of Sean Bell. Perhaps no one knows better than I do that some cops, when using their weapons, make mistakes, disregard their training, succumb to panic or even act with outright malice.

But I also know that, despite the impression often created by TV news and social media, not all but many law-enforcement agencies have dramatically reduced the number of officer-involved shooting incidents.

The NYPD is a case in point. Consider the numbers. In 1971, the first year that the department began compiling detailed data on police shootings, officers shot 314 people, 93 of them fatally. Two decades later, in 1991, the number of NYPD shootings had decreased to 108, with 27 fatalities—a significant reduction but still a disturbingly high number. By 2015 (the last year for which complete official statistics are available), the number of people intentionally shot by NYPD cops had plummeted to 23, with eight resulting in a fatality—a reduction of more than 90% over the previous 4½ decades.

Let me put that in context. In a city of 8.2 million people—and in a police department of more than 35,000 armed officers who in 2015 responded to more than 66,000 calls involving weapons—NYPD cops shot and killed eight criminal suspects. All of these individuals had prior arrest histories, five were carrying a gun or pellet gun, one was stabbing an officer with a knife, and two were violently struggling with cops to avoid arrest.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Netanyahu Presses for More Sanctions Against Iran The Israeli leader says in London that ‘responsible’ countries should follow U.S. lead in countering alleged Iranian aggression By Nicholas Winning and Jason Douglas

Posted By on February 7th, 2017

LONDON—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday urged Western leaders to follow U.S. President Donald Trump in imposing fresh sanctions against Iran.

Speaking in London, where he met with his U.K. counterpart, Theresa May, Mr. Netanyahu said responsible countries should follow the U.S.’s lead to counter alleged Iranian aggression.

“Iran seeks to annihilate Israel. It says so openly. It seeks to conquer the Middle East, it threatens Europe, it threatens the West, it threatens the world. And it offers provocation after provocation,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

“That’s why I welcome President Trump’s insistence of new sanctions against Iran. I think other nations should follow soon, certainly responsible nations.”

Tehran recently test-launched a ballistic missile, drawing condemnation from the new administration in Washington, which imposed a raft of new sanctions against dozens of Iranian-linked entities on Friday.

Iran was also listed among the seven countries whose citizens have been denied access to the U.S. under Mr. Trump’s controversial travel ban.

Senior U.S. officials said the sanctions marked the beginning of an escalating campaign to confront Tehran in the Middle East and restrain its military capabilities.

Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House on Feb. 15 for talks with Mr. Trump.

Speaking alongside Mr. Netanyahu on Monday ahead of their formal discussions, Mrs. May said she was willing to discuss Iran but didn’t say whether the U.K. would support a tougher stance against Tehran.

A spokeswoman for Mrs. May said after the two leaders met that the British prime minister “was clear that the nuclear deal is vital and must be properly enforced and policed, while recognizing concerns about Iran’s pattern of destabilizing activity in the region.”

The U.K. is one of the parties to the 2015 deal under which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for an easing of international sanctions. Mr. Trump has criticized that accord and threatened to renegotiate it. CONTINUE AT SITE

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Israel Approves Legislation Retroactively Legalizing Settlements No immediate reaction from Trump administration, which initially indicated it wouldn’t pressure Israel to cease settlement expansion By Nancy Shekter-Porat

Posted By on February 7th, 2017

TEL AVIV—Israel’s parliament on Monday approved legislation that retroactively legalizes thousands of Jewish settler homes in the occupied West Bank, a step likely to spark legal challenges and draw international condemnation.

The passage of the bill by a vote of 60-52 in Israel’s 120-seat parliament follows a string of pro-settler steps taken by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since Donald Trump took office as U.S. president.

While Israeli critics of the legislation vowed to go to court, Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the ruling coalition’s Jewish Home Party who co-wrote the bill, hailed the vote as a milestone in the country’s history.

“On this day, the State of Israel decided that developing and advancing settlements in Judea and Samaria is in Israel’s interest,” he said, using the biblical names for the West Bank. “Now we will continue to apply sovereignty and continue to build and develop settlements in all parts of the country.”

Mr. Netanyahu wasn’t present in parliament for the vote: He was returning to Israel from London, where he met U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May earlier in the day for talks on alleged threats posed by Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and bilateral trade.

There was no immediate reaction from the Trump administration, which initially indicated it wouldn’t pressure Israel to cease settlement expansion, reversing the position of its predecessor. In a statement on Friday, however, the White House said Israel’s settlement construction “may not be helpful.”

Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House Feb. 15 for talks with President Trump.

Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Defense, Eli Ben-Dahan (front) and other Israeli lawmakers gesture as they attend a vote on a bill at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem Monday. Photo: ammar awad/Reuters

Under the legislation approved late Monday, Israeli authorities are allowed to declare as government property the private Palestinian land upon which the formerly illegal enclaves were built. The measure calls for the Palestinian owners of the land to be compensated with money or alternative plots of land. CONTINUE AT SITE

BOOKS Comments turned off

George Eliot Knew a Thing or Two About 21st-Century Politics She wrote ‘Middlemarch’ in 1872 and set it in the 1830s. It’s eerily familiar.By Allysia Finley

Posted By on February 7th, 2017

What can a Victorian-era novel depicting provincial English society teach us about modern politics? For starters, the more politics change, the more they stay the same.
George Eliot’s opus “Middlemarch” (1872), set in a small English town in the early 1830s, isn’t on most high school or college core reading lists. It should be. The novel’s vexing political questions foreshadow the debates taking place today.

“Middlemarch” unfolds against the backdrop of rapid industrialization and a rising middle class. At the time, only the landed aristocracy could vote. Due to urban migration—there was no redistricting to account for population shifts—cities were underrepresented. Meanwhile, the gentry controlled sparsely populated “rotten” boroughs whose voters were under their thumb.

In the novel, political agitators recruit the wealthy landlord Arthur Brooke to run for Parliament on a program of democratic reform. Eliot portrays Mr. Brooke as a frontman for the populist movement and observes that “the very men who profess to be for him would bring another member out of the bag at the right moment.”

Democratic activists choose him because he’s an empty vessel: “Mr. Brooke’s mind, if it had the burthen of remembering any train of thought, would let it drop, run away in search of it, and not easily come back again.” He’s flawed in other ways: Mr. Brooke’s opponents disparage him as “a damned bad landlord” who is “currying favor with a low set.” They make hay out of his poor treatment of tenants.

Mr. Brooke buys a newspaper, the Pioneer, and installs Will Ladislaw, a political activist, as editor to promote his campaign. Eliot describes the Pioneer as a “valuable property which did not pay.” Newspaper readership in those days was also segregated politically: “It’s no use your puffing Brooke as a reforming landlord, Ladislaw: they only pick the more holes in his coat in the [competing rag] ‘Trumpet,’ ” Tertius Lydgate tells his friend. Mr. Ladislaw retorts: “No matter; those who read the ‘Pioneer’ don’t read the ‘Trumpet’ . . . Do you suppose the public reads with a view to its own conversion?”

Dr. Lydgate is a young physician who aims to revolutionize the practice of medicine, which “chiefly consisted in giving a great many drugs.” Doctors made their money by writing prescriptions, especially for opiates. Dr. Lydgate favors a holistic treatment-and-payment model over physicians “making out long bills for draughts, boluses, and mixtures.”

However, the doctor doubts whether laws promulgated by self-interested politicians will accomplish anything in the way of reform. “That is the way with you political writers,” Dr. Lydgate tells his friend, “crying up a measure as if it were a universal cure, and crying up men who are a part of the very disease that wants curing. . . . You go against rottenness, and there is nothing more thoroughly rotten than making people believe that society can be cured by a political hocus-pocus.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The ObamaCare Cleanup Begins Early executive action can improve short-term insurance markets.

Posted By on February 7th, 2017

All of a sudden the press is filled with stories about Republicans supposedly retreating from their promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Liberals are claiming vindication and conservatives are getting nervous, but the stampede to declare failure is premature. The orderly transition to a more stable and affordable health-care system is merely beginning.

As with much else in the Donald Trump era, people should avoid rushing to conclusions. Too much significance is attributed to Republicans adding the word “repair” to their vocabulary, as if this represents a policy change. The insurance markets really do need repair, and doing nothing isn’t realistic amid ObamaCare’s downward spiral.

Likewise, the GOP retreat in Philadelphia last month was contentious, according to leaked audio, but debating the merits of different ideas is how political parties form a strategy. Republicans now recognize that they can’t blame President Obama for insurance disruptions, even if his Administration caused them. They also increasingly understand that they’ve been handed an armed bomb and need to be careful and serious when defusing it.

The exchanges are ailing and fragile—beset by high and rising premiums and a wave of insurer exits. The Health and Human Services Department announced Friday that final enrollment on the federal exchanges for 2017 dropped by about 400,000 from last year. “In spite of the best intentions of Washington and the industry, the intended goals of the ACA have not been achieved. Millions of Americans remain uninsured, and still lack access to affordable health care,” Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said on an investor call, expressing the business consensus.

Uncertainty is inevitably priced into premiums, and benefits and rates for 2018 started to be designed and set months ago. They’ll be approved by regulators in the spring, so Mr. Trump’s HHS nominees, Tom Price and Seema Verma, need to move fast to bring more predictability to the markets.

One of the President’s first acts was to sign an executive order to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay” rules that burden individuals, states and business in order to “create a more free and open health-care market.” The specifics are waiting in an HHS proposed rule about “market stabilization” now under review by the White House budget office.

This rule likely includes short-term measures to deregulate ObamaCare’s most onerous provisions. Technical reforms could be immediately reflected in lower premiums. These include relaxing the essential benefits mandate or the price controls that limit how much rates can vary from person to person. The Obama HHS turned the individual mandate into swiss cheese, creating “special enrollment periods” that allow people to dip in and out of insurance at will. Ensuring continuous coverage may be a priority.

Another useful interim change to reduce gaming would be to shorten the ObamaCare “grace period,” a 90-day window that requires insurers to cover consumers who aren’t paying their premiums. A McKinsey study found one of five exchange enrollees stop paying at some point during the year, and half of them re-enrolled in the same plan the next year, availing themselves of three months of “free” coverage.

Congress could also help stabilize the exchanges by suspending the 10-year $145 billion tax on the insurance industry. The costs will be passed on to consumers in higher rates, which is why Congress and the Obama White House agreed to a one-year suspension for 2017. Oliver Wyman estimates that another delay would offer immediate premium relief of 3% for 2018. This would buy some goodwill amid debates about who owes who what in various ObamaCare reimbursement programs.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

It’s Britain, So the Anti-Semitism Is More Refined Cutting and pasting the old prejudice of Jews as infanticidal global masterminds onto Israel. Brendan O’Neill ( Aug. 15, 2014)

Posted By on February 7th, 2017

While browsing this morning I came across this pithy column from Brendan O’Neill still so relevant today….rsk

Britain’s leftists are patting themselves on the back for having resisted the lure of anti-Semitism. Sure, there were some ugly incidents in the U.K. during the Gaza conflict in recent weeks, including the smashing of a Belfast synagogue’s window and the pasting of a sign saying “Child Murderers” on a synagogue in Surrey. But for the most part, Britain’s anti-Israel protesters trill, we avoided the orgies of Jew-hate that stained protests about Gaza in Paris, Berlin and other European cities.

I don’t buy that Britain is an oasis of prejudice-free anti-Zionism in a European desert of anti-Semitic sentiment. Rather, Brits have simply proven themselves more adept than their Continental counterparts at dolling up their prejudices as political stands. In Britain, the meshing of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, the expression of ancient prejudices in the seemingly legitimate guise of opposing Israel, is more accomplished than it is in other European countries. Britain isn’t free of anti-Semitism—we’re just better than our cousins on the Continent at expressing that poisonous outlook in a more coded, clever way.

What has been most striking about the British response to the Gaza conflict is the extent to which all the things that were once said about Jews are now said about Israel. Everywhere, from the spittle-flecked newspaper commentary to angry street protests, the old view of Jews as infanticidal masterminds of global affairs has been cut-and-pasted onto Israel.

Consider the constant branding of Israelis as “child murderers.” The belief that Israel takes perverse pleasure in killing children is widespread. It was seen in the big London demonstrations where protesters waved placards featuring caricatured Israeli politicians saying “I love killing women and children.” It could be heard in claims by the U.K.-based group Save the Children that Israel launched a “war on children.” It was most explicitly expressed in the Independent newspaper last week when a columnist described Israel as a “child murdering community” and wondered how long it would be before Israeli politicians hold a “Child Murderer Pride” festival.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Fading U.S. Influence In Asia By Herbert London President, London Center for Policy Research

Posted By on February 7th, 2017

If one requires any evidence that the United States is a fading power, the recent events in the South China Sea offer ample evidence. Two Chinese fighter jets intercepted U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft and, to add to the humiliation rebuked the Obama administration for any surveillance near China. The incident took place in international airspace on what has been described as a “routine U.S. patrol.” This latest encounter comes on the heels of another interception in which Chinese jets mimicked an all-out attack on a U.S. naval vessel that sailed close to a disputed reef. These are merely two recent war like actions by the Chinese in a series of interception since 2014.

China now claims most of the South China Sea through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes each year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei all have claims of one kind or another in the Chinese created perimeter and all of these nations depend on the U.S. to enforce those claims. Washington has accused Beijing of militarizing the region, but China responds with a shrug suggesting that there are diplomatic channels available for the resolution of disputes.

The weakness of U.S. naval forces in the Pacific and the China Sea is apparent. New naval vessels – desperately needed to relieve the demands on the existing force – are not in production and with sequestration, are not likely to be in production. There are an insufficient number of Aegis equipped ships to provide an acceptable level of sea-based protection. And after several incidents in which there hasn’t been a military response, Chinese officials believe the U.S. has acquiesced in their regional domination.

Moreover, and quite tellingly, the nations that have claims on islands in the South China Sea, have either dropped their protests or softened their language. There is the growing realization the U.S. is not prepared to protect island claims or even protect freedom of the seas.

The president elect of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, explained, “America would never die for us. If America cared, if would have sent its aircraft carriers and missile frigates the moment China started reclaiming land in contested territory, but no such thing happened… America is afraid to go to war. We’re better off making friends with China.” This is a sentiment resonating throughout the continent.

Chinese sorties against the U.S. are not a casus belli, even as they have increased regional tension and have exposed the U.S. as an ill-prepared protector of Asian allies. Having eviscerated national naval strength, there isn’t much the U.S. can do except express our dismay at the U.N. and in bilateral talks.

The Chinese installation of DF-21 “carrier killer” surface to ship missile, and its current iteration, has a range of 2500 miles. Of significant concern is the Russian air defense, the S-500 anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems that are likely to neutralize the effectiveness of the F-35 stealth fighter before it becomes operational, which the Chinese claim to have acquired. These technical breakthroughs give the U.S. Navy pause; while not dispositive they are factors that militate against activism.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

EDWARD CLINE: DRUNKEN SAILORS

Posted By on February 6th, 2017

What will we do with a drunken sailor? (Irish Rovers, with lyrics)

There are two sets of drunken sailors who are the subjects here: Angela Merkel and her cronies and her soused immigration policies that are destroying Europe; and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which not only is seriously considering appointing a rabid, recalcitrant Muslim as its next chairman, but has also pledged as a party to scuttle or block President Trump’s whole agenda and his cabinet nominees.

Both sets presume to lead their countries to an era of peace and “tolerance” and multicultural “harmony.”

There is a third set of drunken sailors, with which Merkel and the DNC have collaborated in their inebriated binges, the Mainstream Media (MSM).

Merkel is determined to continue her nation-destroying open-immigration policies which have saturated Germany with Muslim welfare parasites, criminals, and jihadis posing as “refugees,” and faces stiff opposition from newly invigorated “right wing” parties. Even her immigration allies are having second thoughts about the practical political consequences. The Democratic National Committee, on the other hand, is still reeling drunkenly over Trump’s election and its having lost the 2016 presidential contest, which, if it had managed to get Hillary Clinton elected, would have foisted on the country an America hater arguably worse than Barack Obama. Looking favorably at Keith Ellison, this is a desperate attempt to elevate the DNC to a position of influence, to become “relevant.”

Shave their bellies with a rusty razor? Put them in bed with the captain’s daughter (the cat o’ nine tails)? Put them in an asylum seeker’s longboat until they’re sober, or drowned? Way hay and up she rises!

The DNC and Merkel: Binge partners.

The MSM has an open bar.

Merkel has put her foot down. She is not back-pedaling on her destructive immigration policy. Germans be damned. They’ve just got to get used to the rapes, the spiraling crime rate, and shouldering additional welfare state burdens. It’s their altruist duty, don’t you know? Breitbart London reported on February 29th:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has refused to back down over her open borders migration policy, saying in a televised interview that there is “no point in believing that I can solve the problem through the unilateral closure of borders.”

“I have no plan B,” she added.