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.reuters.com/…

Iran has converted financial reserves into gold to avoid future problems, an adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in comments published on Saturday, after the price of oil fell more than 60 percent from a peak in July.

Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, is under U.N. and U.S. sanctions over its disputed nuclear programme and is now also facing declining revenue from its oil exports after crude prices tumbled.

“With the plans of the presidency…the country’s money reserves were changed into gold so that we wouldn’t be faced with many problems in the future,” presidential adviser Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi was quoted as saying by business daily Poul.

He gave no figures or other details.

Before oil prices plunged by more than 60 percent from a peak of $147 per barrel in July, Iran made windfall gains from its crude exports and in April estimated its foreign exchange reserves at about $80 billion.

Iranian officials in July denied reports Iranian banks were moving funds from Europe, with one report suggesting as much as $75 billion had been withdrawn and converted into gold or placed in Asian banks, because of a threat of tightening sanctions.

The International Monetary Fund said in August that if the price of Iranian crude fell to $75 a barrel, Iran would face a current account deficit in the medium term that would be tough to sustain due to Tehran’s financial isolation.

On Friday, U.S. crude fell $1.20 at $57.04.

Gold futures ended more than 5 percent higher on Friday and bullion ended the week about $10 higher compared with its last Friday’s close of $735.95 as investors covered short positions.

Iran best be careful. The international bankers may consider that an act of war.

I figure while we may appreciate the ideas behind the Constitution we do need to put the celebration in perspective.

http://www.harrybrowne.org/…

This day isn’t important.

There are far more significant days in the year:

• Labor Day, when we pretend to care about other people’s jobs while frolicking at the beach.
• Election Day, when we pretend we’re making a difference by voting.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Susan B. Anthony Day, when we pretend to be politically correct.
• Memorial Day, when we pretend that we live in a free country because of all the people who were killed in the government’s senseless wars.
• Flag Day, when we pretend the government is America.
• Veterans Day (formerly Armistice Day, when we pretended that World War I made the world safe for democracy).
• National Teachers Day, when we pretend our children are getting an education.
• Earth Day, when we pretend that making the government more powerful will make the environment cleaner.
• United Nations Day, when we pretend to believe all those inane statements about world peace.

Today doesn’t seem to come anywhere near those days in importance.

You see, today is supposed to be Constitution Day. And no one really cares about the Constitution anymore.

Read More…

http://blogs.smh.com.au/…

Roy W Spencer made the announcement when he gave testimony before the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on 22 July 2008. He has a PhD in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has been
involved in global warming research for close to twenty years. He has numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles dealing with the measurement and interpretation of climate variability and climate change. He is Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the AMSR-E instrument flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Data obtained from Aqua is the basis for much of the following.

Here are excerpts from his full testimony.

“Regarding the currently popular theory that mankind is responsible for global warming, I am very pleased to deliver good news from the front lines of climate change research. Our latest research results, which I am about to describe, could have an enormous impact on policy decisions regarding greenhouse gas emissions. … we now have new satellite evidence which strongly suggests that the climate system is much less sensitive than is claimed by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”

“Another way of saying this is that the real climate system appears to be dominated by “negative feedbacks” — instead of the “positive feedbacks” which are displayed by all twenty computerized climate models utilized by the IPCC. …If true, an insensitive climate system would mean that we have little to worry about in the way of manmade global warming and associated climate change. And, … it would also mean that the warming we have experienced in the last 100 years is mostly
natural. Of course, if climate change is mostly natural then it is largely out of our control, and is likely to end — if it has not ended already, since satellite-measured global temperatures have not warmed for at least seven years now.”

“The support for my claim of low climate sensitivity (net negative feedback) for our climate system is two-fold. First, we have a new research article in-press in the Journal of Climate which uses a simple climate model to show that previous estimates of the sensitivity of the climate system from satellite data were biased toward the high side by the neglect of natural cloud variability. It turns out that the failure to account for natural, chaotic cloud variability generated internal to the climate system will always lead to the illusion of a climate system which appears more sensitive than it really is. …”

“The second line of evidence in support of an insensitive climate system comes from the satellite data themselves. While our work in-press established the existence of an observational bias in estimates of climate sensitivity, it did not address just how large that bias might be. But in the last several weeks, we have stumbled upon clear and convincing observational evidence of particularly strong negative feedback (low climate sensitivity) from our latest and best satellite instruments. That evidence includes our development of two new methods for extracting the feedback signal from either observational or climate model data, a goal which has been called the “holy grail” of climate research. …”

Not including clouds in the simulations invalidates the result? No shit? Funny… skeptics have been saying that for years. I spent my lunch yesterday explaining that and other reasons to question the “consensus” on global cooling global warming global climate change.

The last episode of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit (S06E06) was on the this topic. I recommend watching it though I warn you that what you witness may cause your brain to hurt.

• The attack on the US embassy has resulted in the death of one person who’s burned body was found. I’ve yet to hear any identifying info.
• Russia is threatening to use “force to resolve the dispute over Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia if NATO forces breach the terms of their U.N. mandate.”
• While watching CNN this morning report on rallies in Kosovo I saw 2 or 3 individuals wearing Che Guevara t-shirts. The city is 50/50 serb/albainian and there are great fears that it could turn violent. Let’s hope it doesn’t and those Che supporters aren’t the rock throwing types.
• Serbs have cell phones

• They only have US flags to burn in order to keep warm

• Foreign-owned shops were vandalized, Serbian police did nothing about it.
• Russia and China still oppose the declaration of independence and Spain is afraid that official recognition will encourage other secessionist movements… like the Basques in their north.
• Given that… blog of bile fully supports the people of Kosovo’s choice in becoming independent of Serbia and recognizes Kosovo as a nation. Don’t throw rocks at the Serbs unless they throw first.

http://epw.senate.gov/…

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.

This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007.

Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, explains how many of his fellow scientists have been intimidated.

“Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media,” Paldor wrote.

I’m a skeptic of everything… especially of those things which “everyone agrees” on. It has always bother me that the counter evidence and research in regard to global warming or global weather change or whatever they like to call it has been not only ignored but often hostilely dismissed and ridiculed. There has been this whole culture that was created around “global warming denial.” You show an ounce of skepticism about the whole thing and people jump down your throat. People seem to willfully ignore the data and refuse to hear it. They believe the headlines and Al Gore and not the meat of the research. They fail to understand the impracticality and dangers of knee jerk reactions to the supposed issue.

What really drives me nuts however are those who don’t want to make any sacrifices for what they believe to be for the benefit of the planet unless the government forces them to do so. Like that guy I fought with in a local Thai resturant who wanted people to stop driving gas guzzlers but wouldn’t get rid of his SUV until the government mandated it because it wasn’t fair otherwise. Or replace his incandescent bulbs because he preferred the light they gave off.

Well he will probably get his wish. The Congress passed and Bush signed a new energy bill with aims to counter global climate change. It’s all kinds of bad but the worst are the phasing out of incandescent bulbs and ethanol subsidy increases. The ethanol increases will push up the cost of food, cost tax payers more in taxes or future tax payers in loans, and ethanol actually gets less miles per gallon and some say pollutes more in some ways than gasoline so the mandatory increase in gas millage will be that much difficult.