http://www.telegraph.co.uk/…

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China’s official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its “worst snowstorm ever”. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS’s computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious “hockey stick” graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new “hotspot” in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen’s institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

When it comes down to it… the climate changes regardless of humanity. The human caused global warming alarmists are losing credibility constantly yet they many have more faith in their predictions then Jesus. Numbers fudged, data point biases ignored, all contrary data dismissed without serious consideration and the shutting up of all those who speak out, and perhaps worse… ignoring the economic realities of the situation and instead of making practical plans to deal with the possible warming and seeing if it would actually be a negative they preach doom.

http://www.breitbart.com/…

Americans are the world’s top consumers of cannabis and cocaine despite punitive US drug laws, according to an international study published in the online scientific magazine PLoS Medicine.

The study, released Monday, revealed that 16.2 percent of Americans had tried cocaine at least once, and 42.4 percent had used marijuana.

In second-place New Zealand, just 4.3 percent of study participants had used cocaine, and 41.9 percent marijuana.

The research was conducted at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, based on World Health Organization data from 54,068 people in 17 countries.

Rates of participation differed from country to country, and researchers noted uncertainty over how honestly people report their own drug use.

“Nevertheless, the findings present comprehensive data on the patterns of drug use from national samples representing all regions of the world,” a PLoS statement said.

A vast majority of survey participants from the United States, Europe, Japan and New Zealand had consumed alcohol, compared to smaller percentages from the Middle East, Africa and China.

The data also revealed socioeconomic patterns in drug use. Single young adult men with high income had the greatest tendency to regularly use drugs.

Drug use “does not appear to be simply related to drug policy,” the researchers wrote, “since countries with more stringent policies toward illegal drug use did not have lower levels of such drug use than countries with more liberal policies.”

In the Netherlands, where drug policy is more liberal than the United States, 1.9 percent of survey participants said they had used cocaine and 19.8 percent marijuana.

Twelve US 12 states including California permit medical use of marijuana, but possession and use remains prohibited under federal law.

And despite the US government’s massive anti-drug efforts, the United States remains the world’s top drug market, one amply supplied by South American cartels.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency has observed ever larger quantities of illegal drugs pouring into the country.

“We are seizing greater quantities of illegal drugs than ever before,” said a DEA statement last week.

In 2007, agents seized 41 metric tons of cocaine in just two raids, and denied drug traffickers record-breaking revenue of 3.5 billion dollars for the year, it said.

That war on drugs is working real well, huh?

Farmers wage war over milk hormone

There’s a milk war under way in Pennsylvania, with a hormone known as rbST at ground zero.

Farmers who use rbST say the hormone is naturally produced by cows, does not harm cows or humans and can increase milk production.

Farmers who don’t use rbST say the hormone is injurious to cows and might be damaging to humans.

What has sparked the war is a decision by some dairies to label their milk as rbST-free, thus implying that their milk is safer than milk from cows that are injected with rbST, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for commercial use in 1993.

Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff sides with farmers who use rbST.

Wolff said labels proclaiming milk to be free of artificial growth hormones are misleading and unfair to competitors, but the Agriculture Department and governor’s office are now reconsidering an earlier decision ordering dairies to stop labeling milk containers as hormone-free. That action was supposed to take effect on Jan. 1 but could be delayed a month or more as officials continue to consider arguments from both sides.

Ethics Is Real Issue Behind Milk-Labeling Controversy

the countries of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and all 25 members of the European Union have already banned the use of rBST/rBHG in the production of milk.

This is a major issues in some circles. The ‘documentary’ The Corporation talks about rbST/rbHG quite a bit… though they worry about and attack the wrong people in the film. Most people are not familiar with the controversy. Then again most people aren’t aware the federal government restricts “the transportation and sale in interstate commerce of unpasteurized milk and milk products.” The claim that people will be confused is without merit. They may not know what it is but you’d hope that either the rbST-free labels say what it is or the places which sell the milk could provide documentation if customers requested. Hell… they could just look it up on Google.com. If they don’t educate themselves so be it. If they regulate anything it aught to be requiring those who do use the hormone to label their products. This is corporatism masked as nanny statism. Both of which are bad for the public and the economy. As Joshua Katz says over at LewRockwell.com:

Now, the state of Pennsylvania has outlawed the labels. This is quite harmful to producers who built organic farms, which are much harder to build and maintain, on the expectation of being able to obtain a higher milk price. Now that the milk is not labeled, there will be no price differential, and soon enough there will be no untreated milk available for sale in the state, I’d wager.

I’d agree. Hopefully this falls through… and then lets work on getting rid of the milk cartel subsidies.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=22148

In May, the Commonwealth Fund issued its latest comparison of the U.S. medical system with five other wealthy nations’ systems: Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and Great Britain.

Predictably, the study begins: “Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms.”

I was immediately suspicious, considering the loaded study by the World Health Organization seven years ago. (I wrote about it last week.)

Michael Cannon, the Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies, summed up what’s wrong with the study: “The report does nothing more than reveal which nation does the worst job of satisfying the subjective preferences of the people who conducted this study.”
Fans of the Canadian system should note that Canada ranked fifth out of six and did worse than the U.S. in many ways.

I love how this and the WHO report go out of their way to make the US system look bad without it looking so bad as to be unbelievable. Since most people only read the headlines or the overall ‘rank’ assigned it makes it easy to sneak the truth by the public. It’s interesting how they weight having computers to print medication lists the same as receiving preventive care. Equity doesn’t go into detail as to what ’sick’ means when people don’t go to the doctor when sick. Lots of people don’t go when sick because it’s not necessary. How many of those in the UK (who’s 1st in equity) go just because they can? I’ve read that the elderly will make appointments because they are lonely and in some UK hospitals they’ve had to introduce a small copay to keep them from wasting the doctors time. Freedom will drive down health care and insurance prices and keep our quality up… not more government regulation.

• H.R. 2725: Alarm Customer VOIP Notification Act of 2007. To require the Federal Communications Commission to adopt regulations to protect subscribers to Internet protocol telephone services concerning the use of such services with alarm, security, and personal emergency response systems. Section 2(b)(3): having a UPS is nice… but you are more likely to lose net service before electricity.
• H.R. 2756: Honest Money Act. To repeal section 5103 of title 31, United States Code. Sec. 5103. Legal tender: United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts. Our good friend Ron Paul. Here’s the explanation for this.
• H.R. 2730: Numismatic Rarities Certainty Act of 2007. To provide a clear line of demarcation with regard to private ownership of any coin, medal, or numismatic item made or issued by the United States Government before January 1, 1933. Good. So all those old coins people have would actually be theirs.
• H.R. 2717: Access to Medical Treatment Act. Appears it would allow doctors to perform medical treatments that have not been approved by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Oddly it says not approved or approved in the EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or Japan but not here. Doesn’t the first section cover the second?
• H.R. 2711: To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit certain computer-assisted remote hunting, and for other purposes. No computer-assisted remote hunting between states. Liberally interpreted this would ban it almost completely. The internet is interstate commerce. Perhaps if you could prove data traveled only within the state. Otherwise you’d have to setup a private network which wouldn’t be feasible.
• S. 1603: A bill to authorize Congress to award a gold medal to Jerry Lewis. More money wasted by the government. But hey… it is Jerry Lewis they’re talking about here.