Nearly 1000 record low temperatures in US Nov. 21-28, 2013

11/29/13, "Almost 1000 record low max temps vs 17 record high temps," IceAgeNow.info

"Let’s face it. The idea of human-caused global warming is a con job.
 
Records in the last 7 days:

205 snowfall records.
969 Low Max. 203 Low temps.
17 High Temp.
61 High minimum.

Yes, those are snowfall records in Texas. And yes, it is still Fall.

http://wx.hamweather.com/maps/climate/records/1week/us.html?cat=maxtemp,mintemp,snow,lowma x,highmin,

Thanks to Ralph Fato for this link 

“I must have missed this,” says Ralph. “Was this on the news?”"



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NY Times suddenly discovers Medicaid growth could make existing doctor shortage even worse

"Central planning has never delivered on its promises and there's no reason to think it ever will."
----------------------------

11/28/13, "Medicaid Growth Could Aggravate Doctor Shortage," NY Times, Abby Goodnough

"Dr. Ted Mazer is one of the few ear, nose and throat specialists in this region who treat low-income people on Medicaid, so many of his patients travel long distances to see him. 

But now, as California’s Medicaid program is preparing for a major expansion under President Obama’s health care law, Dr. Mazer says he cannot accept additional patients under the government insurance program for a simple reason: It does not pay enough. 

“It’s a bad situation that is likely to be made worse,” he said. 

His view is shared by many doctors around the country. Medicaid for years has struggled with a shortage of doctors willing to accept its low reimbursement rates and red tape, forcing many patients to wait for care, particularly from specialists like Dr. Mazer. 

Yet in just five weeks, millions of additional Americans will be covered by the program, many of them older people with an array of health problems. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that nine million people will gain coverage through Medicaid next year alone. In many of the 26 states expanding the program, the newly eligible have been flocking to sign up. 

Community clinics, which typically provide primary but not specialty care, have expanded and hired more medical staff members to meet the anticipated wave of new patients. And managed-care companies are recruiting doctors, nurse practitioners and other professionals into their networks, sometimes offering higher pay if they improve care while keeping costs down. But it is far from clear that the demand can be met, experts say. 

In California, with the nation’s largest Medicaid population, many doctors say they are already overwhelmed and are unable to take on more low-income patients. Dr. Hector Flores, a primary care doctor in East Los Angeles whose practice has 26,000 patients, more than a third of whom are on Medicaid, said he could accommodate an additional 1,000 Medicaid patients at most. 

“There could easily be 10,000 patients looking for us, and we’re just not going to be able to serve them,” said Dr. Flores, who is also the chairman of the family medicine department at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles. 

California officials say they are confident that access will not be an issue. But the state is expecting to add as many as two million people to its Medicaid rolls over the next two years — far more than any other state. They will be joining more than seven million people who are already in the program here. One million of the newly eligible will probably be enrolled by July 2014, said Mari Cantwell, an official with the state’s Department of Health Care Services. 

On top of that, only about 57 percent of doctors in California accept new Medicaid patients, according to a study published last year in the journal Health Affairs — the second-lowest rate in the nation after New Jersey. Payment rates for Medicaid, known in California as Medi-Cal, are also low here compared with most states, and are being cut by an additional 10 percent in some cases just as the expansion begins....

The health care law seeks to diminish any access problem by allowing for a two-year increase in the Medicaid payment rate for primary care doctors, set to expire at the end of 2014. The average increase is 73 percent, bringing Medicaid rates to the level of Medicare rates for these doctors. 

But states have been slow to put the pay increase into effect, experts say, and because of the delay and the fact that the increase is temporary, fewer doctors than hoped have joined the ranks of those accepting Medicaid patients....

Dr. Paul Urrea, an ophthalmologist in Monterey Park, said he was skeptical of “blue-sky scenarios” suggesting that all new enrollees would have access to care. “Having been in the trenches with Medi-Cal patients who have serious eye problems,” he said, “I can tell you it’s very, very hard to get them in to see those specialists.” 

Dr. Urrea said that when he recently tried to refer a Medicaid patient with a cornea infection to another eye specialist, he was initially informed that the specialist could not see the patient until February. “And this is a potentially blinding condition,”

he added....

 

Oresta Johnson, 59, who sees Dr. Mazer through the state’s interim health care program for low-income residents but will switch to Medicaid in January, said she had faced “excessively long” waits to see specialists who could treat her degenerative joint disease. Dr. Mazer is monitoring her thyroid gland, she said, and she is hoping she will not have a problem getting back in to see him next spring, when she may need a biopsy."...

========================

11/29/13, "Medicaid Fraud: Obamacare promise of free quality healthcare," Legal Insurrection, William a. Jacobson

"The result of all this will be a targeting of doctors. Forcing doctors to accept Medicaid patients will be the inevitable solution."

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11/29/13, "Doctors Don’t Like What They’ve Seen In ObamaCare," IBD Editorial

"Three years ago our IBD/TIPP Poll found that nearly half of doctors said they would consider quitting their practices if the Democrats' health care overhaul became law. So how do they like it now? Not much.

President Obama himself swore that once Americans saw what was in the Affordable Care Act they would like it — a broken promise much like his bogus assurance that "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan." Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, at one time ObamaCare's chief apologist, made a similar statement in early 2010 when he wrote that "if you actually tell people what's in the health-care reform bill, then it becomes quite popular."...

But that was almost four years ago. In late 2013, doctors are finding out what is in ObamaCare and they don't like what they see. Poll results released earlier this month by Jackson & Corker found that 61% of physicians said their opinion of the ACA "has changed for the worse." Only 31% said it had not.

The survey, which polled more than 3,000 doctors, also found that 80% of physicians say Americans currently insured will have to pay more under ObamaCare — remember the Obama promise of bending the cost curve downward? — while 76% see overall health care costs rising due to the ACA.

And what will America get in exchange for increasing costs? Quite likely, substandard results. Six in 10 doctors, the poll found, believe the quality of patient care will be hurt by ObamaCare, while 57% say the law will have negative impacts on treatment decisions.

Other highlights from the poll:

• More than seven in 10 doctors (73%) say patients will have less choice.
• Not quite half (44%) say they will not participate in the ObamaCare exchanges.
• More than half (56%) want the Affordable Care Act to either be repealed or defunded.
• Nearly two-thirds (66%) anticipate spending more time on administrative burdens.

While readers digest these numbers, they should also consider yet another now-they-tell-us story from the media that actively campaigned for passage of ObamaCare.

On the day the nation celebrated Thanksgiving, the New York Times — our alleged "newspaper of record" — revealed that Medicaid growth under ObamaCare "could aggravate" the doctor shortage that already plagues that program.

As many as 9 million new Americans will be eligible for Medicaid under ObamaCare, says the Congressional Budget Office, which is going to overwhelm Medicaid doctors who often are already flooded with patients. Many physicians will simply say they cannot take new Medicaid patients.

Almost three years have passed since the ObamaCare legislation was signed into law, and all we've seen so far is failure. So we think it's legitimate to ask: Is there any evidence that the Democrats' health care overhaul actually has produced any benefits at all?

None that we can see. It's been as disastrous as we expected and its woes will only multiply. Any attempt by Washington to ensure and provide health care for 315 million Americans is not only doomed to failure but is guaranteed to make things worse.

How could it not? Central planning has never delivered on its promises and there's no reason to think it ever will. America's doctors recognize this. If only the country's lawmakers were as sharp as doctors."

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Study using Google Earth finds fish catches of seven Persian Gulf nations may be six times more than countries officially report-UK Guardian

11/27/13, "Google Earth reveals Persian gulf fish catch is six times larger than thought," UK Guardian, Mongabay

"Google Earth has been once again used by researchers for scientific discovery. 

Researchers from the University of British Columbia scoured Google Earth in search of fishing weirs along the coasts of seven Persian Gulf nations. They found some 1,900 fish traps, suggesting that the total fish catch in the Persian Gulf may be up to six times the officially reported level of 5,260 metric tons per year.

The findings, published in ICES Journal of Marine Science, indicate that the traditional fishing approach — which is used widely around the world — has a larger impact than conventionally believed.

“This ancient fishing technique has been around for thousands of years,” said Dalal Al-Abdulrazzak, a PhD student with the UBC Fisheries Centre’s Sea Around Us Project and the study’s lead author, in a statement. “But we haven’t been able to truly grasp their impact on our marine resources until now, with the help of modern technology.”

The methodology could be used in other regions to provide more accurate fishing estimates, according to co-author Daniel Pauly, the principal investigator with the Sea Around Us Project.

"Time and again we’ve seen that global fisheries catch data don’t add up,” said Pauly. “Because countries don’t provide reliable information on their fisheries’ catches, we need to expand our thinking and look at other sources of information and new technologies to tell us about what’s happening in our oceans.”

The findings provide another example of scientists using Google Earth for research. The tool has been used to discover a previously unknown reef off Australia; to document how mammals tend to align themselves in a north-south direction with the Earth's magnetic field lines; to identify unexplored forests; and to map deforestation.

Google Earth is also being used to publish results of research, according to Mark Mulligan of the Environmental Monitoring and Modeling Group at King’s College, London.

"Many scientists are publishing the results of their studies (maps and imagery) in Google Earth as a means of enabling policy makers to engage better with the policy outcomes of scientific research," Mulligan told Mongabay.com in 2009."






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Duke lacrosse rape accuser's Nov. 22, 2013 murder conviction unreported on broadcast tv networks ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as MSNBC and NPR

11/27/13, "Duke Rape Accuser Got 160 TV News Stories on Accusation, 3 on Murder Conviction," CNSNews.com

"When Crystal Mangum falsely accused several Duke lacrosse players of rape in 2006, there were 160 television news stories in the first five days after the players were arrested, but in 2013, when Mangum was convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison, there were only 3 television news stories, a difference in coverage of 5,233%.

When the Duke lacrosse-rape story broke in March/April 2006, it was huge news, garnering massive, widespread coverage by the networks ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as by FOX, CNN and MSNBC, and the print press, such as USA Today, New York Times and Washington Post.

Basically, the story was that members of the Duke lacrosse team had  a party on March 13, 2006
at an off-campus house where two strippers had been hired to perform – one of them was Crystal Mangum, then 27 years old. At some point there were some verbal exchanges between Mangum and some persons at the party. Mangum left with the other stripper and later that evening/early morning Mangum told police she had been raped.

The story was explosive and politically correct: privileged white lacrosse players at a prestigious college rape underprivileged young black woman. As events developed, three lacrosse players were eventually arrested and charged; the Duke lacrosse coach, Mike Pressler, received threatening phone calls and was forced by Duke to resign; the president of Duke University, Richard Brodhead, suspended the entire lacrosse team for the season; liberal Duke faculty members, the “Group of 88,” signed an advertisement in the Duke Chronicle that reportedly suggested the rape claims were true; the initial prosecutor, Mike Nifong, was disbarred for his misconduct and convicted of criminal contempt; all charges against the 3 players – Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans – were dropped.

Although the rape claims by Mangum were totally false, she was not charged with a crime.

The lacrosse players Finnerty and Seligmann were arrested on Apr. 18, 2006, and charged with rape and kidnapping. In the five days following, Apr. 18 – 22, a Nexis news search of the terms Duke, rape, and lacrosse in "All English Language News," shows there were 673 news stories, 160 of which were from television news outlets and NPR.

Those 160 television news outlets included ABC’s World News Tonight, Nightline, Good Morning America, the CBS Evening News, the Today show, NBC Nightly News, CNN Live, Fox News, MSNBC’s Scarborough Country and Countdown, and myriad other TV news programs.

Last Friday, Nov. 22, Crystal Mangum, the false Duke-rape accuser, was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder – she had stabbed her boyfriend – and sentenced to 14 years in prison.  In the five days since, Nov. 22-26, a Nexis news search of the words Crystal Mangum, murder, Duke, and lacrosse in "All English Language News" reveals there were 48 total news stories but only 3 television news reports – one on Fox and two on CNN.

The big television networks – ABC, CBS, and NBC – and the liberal MSNBC and NPR did not report on Mangum’s murder conviction.

The difference in coverage is noteworthy: 160 stories vs. 3 stories in the first five days of each event. That’s a ratio of 53 to 1, and a difference in coverage of 5,233%.

The television news industry (and NPR) gave 5,233% more coverage to the dubious allegations against the three lacrosse players -- which were proven to be completely false and politically charged -- than they gave the jury-tried murder conviction of Crystal Mangum,
the false accuser." via Drudge



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25,535 excess UK deaths due to cold in 2011-2012 winter, commenter suggests problem won't be solved until dampness of climate is considered along with cold temperatures

11/22/13, "How winter kills more people in Britain ‘than in -30C Sweden’," metro.co.uk, Hayden Smith
.
"The cold claims more lives in Britain than in Sweden, where temperatures regularly plunge as low as -30C (-22F) in winter, campaigners say.

There were 25,535 ‘excess winter deaths’ – people who died as a direct result of the cold – in Britain in 2011-12, compared with 3,385 in Sweden, it was claimed.

Taking into account Britain’s higher population, EWDs accounted for 4.61 per cent of all fatalities in this country, compared with 3.76 per cent in Sweden, according to fuel poverty campaign group the Energy Bill Revolution.

Britain was labelled the ‘cold man of Europe’ by the group, which blamed its findings on ‘appallingly’ insulated homes.

Sweden suffers particularly harsh winters, especially in the north, where snow can lie for up to 120 days and the mercury can fall to -53C (-63.4F). Before winter had fully taken hold yesterday, temperatures in the northern city of Luleå plunged to -8C (17.6F).

Energy Bill Revolution director Ed Matthew said: ‘It is a national disgrace that thousands of people are dying unnecessarily every year, lives that could be saved by something as simple as better insulation.

‘That more people die from the cold every year in temperate Britain than in freezing Sweden is an embarrassment and a tragedy.’

Mr Matthew claimed millions of British families lived in homes with leaking roofs, damp walls or rotting windows– a rate almost twice as high as that of Sweden.

He called on George Osborne to ‘solve the problem once and for all’ by increasing funding for energy efficiency in his autumn statement next month." via Free Rep.

==============================

Commenter notes it's extremely damp in the UK, the combination of cold and damp
makes UK conditions worse, other problems stem from this including rotting wood in buildings:
.
===============================

"Patrick R. Mc Manus · London, United Kingdom

Please take into account the huge humidity factor when writing such articles. The UK has some of the harshest weather in the world. -30 and dry in Sweden cannot be compared with +1, damp and draughty here. If one is cold and damp then that's arguably worse since the skin has to cook off the humidity, that's how sweating works. Add the wind chill to the scenario and you've got extreme cold - not in temperature but the effect it has on the body. The rain/dampness then causes problems such as leaks and rotting in buildings much more often than in drier climes. Until we stop measuring "coldness" by temperature alone we will never realise how cold the UK really is and hence will be unable to protect our people properly. Arguably in terms of fatalities, it's colder here and that's a fact as this article correctly quotes. It's just a different type of cold which is much harder to deal with. It's harder to build for, harder to repair under (waiting for a dry day) and difficult to dress for since it's a more rapidly changing and dynamic winter than elsewhere as the humidity and wind chill factors vary requiring layers to be worn due to such unpredictability.

· November 22 at 11:37am"

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Overlooked Atlantic cooling among reasons 2013 hurricane estimates missed so badly, no named hurricanes made US landfall in 2013

11/25/13, "Why experts blew the 2013 hurricane forecasts," Orlando Sentinel, Ken Kaye

"Why did all the experts get the hurricane season outlook so wrong?

Twelve forecast teams predicted an average of 16 named storms, including eight hurricanes, four major. Yet this season, which ends Saturday, saw only 13 named storms, including two mediocre Category 1 hurricanes.

"Pretty much everyone who tried to forecast the number of hurricanes bombed," said Jeff Masters, chief meteorologist of Weather Underground, an online weather site.

Forecasters say they didn't foresee that a large-scale atmospheric wind pattern would blanket the tropical Atlantic with dry, sinking air. And they didn't anticipate that Saharan dust would further dry out the atmosphere.

Finally, they failed to anticipate that cooler waters would infiltrate the Atlantic in the spring. That helped stymie storm formation and keep those that did emerge relatively weak and short-lived.

"I think the magnitude of the cooling that occurred in the Atlantic was somewhat overlooked by ourselves and others," said Phil Klotzbach, who along with William Gray initially forecast 18 named storms, including nine hurricanes. "It was one of the largest busts for our research team in the 30 years we've been issuing this report."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it, too, was fooled by the arrival of so much dry air. It made this year the sixth-least-active Atlantic hurricane season since 1950, in terms of the collective strength and duration of named storms. The agency in May predicted up to 20 named storms, including up to 11 hurricanes.

"A combination of conditions acted to offset several climate patterns that historically have produced active hurricane seasons," said Gerry Bell, NOAA's lead hurricane forecaster. "As a result, we did not see the large numbers of hurricanes that typically accompany these climate patterns."

Before the season started in June, forecast teams thought a highly active season was brewing because wind shear was expected to be relatively low, tropical waters were projected to be abnormally warm and west African rainfall, which acts to energize tropical waves, was predicted to be heavy.

Additionally, El Niño, the atmospheric force that suppresses storm formation, wasn't expected to develop.

Even in early August, NOAA predicted up to nine hurricanes, five major. Klotzbach and Gray forecast eight hurricanes, three major.

The forecast agency that came closest was Tropical Storm Risk, a British weather firm, which in early August called for 14.8 named storms, including 6.9 hurricanes, three major.

Tropical storm Andrea, the first of the season, was the only named storm to hit the U.S. coastline this year. It initially hit Northwest Florida in June and then generated tornadoes, heavy rain and flooding to portions of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, causing one fatality.

Otherwise, most of this year's systems remained at sea and didn't last long. Of the 13 named storms, nine existed for three days or less, with the last one being Tropical Storm Melissa, which died in the Central Atlantic last week.

Because so many forecast teams misread the atmospheric signals, Klotzbach said, "people will probably not put as much stock in seasonal forecasts next year. You're only as good as your latest forecast."

Some of the early seasonal outlooks:

NOAA: 13 to 20 named storms, including seven to 11 hurricanes, three to six major;

WSI, a part of The Weather Channel: 16 named storms, including nine hurricanes, five intense;

AccuWeather.com: 16 named storms, including eight hurricanes, four intense;

Carolina Coastal University: 15 named storms, including eight hurricanes."





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Arctic shows cooling trend 1998-2011, peer reviewed study Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, August 2013

8/23/13, "On the possibilities to use atmospheric reanalyses to evaluate the warming structure in the Arctic,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Journal of European Geosciences Union
C. E. Chung¹, H. Cha¹, T. Vihma², P. Räisänen², and D. Decremer^1
1School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju 500-712, Korea
²Finnish Meteorological Institute, 00101 Helsinki, Finland

“Abstract.”
 
“There has been growing interest in the vertical structure of the recent Arctic warming. We investigated temperatures at the surface, 925, 700, 500 and 300 hPa levels in the Arctic (north of 70° N) using observations and four reanalyses: 

ERA-Interim, CFSR, MERRA and NCEP II. 

For the period 1979–2011, the layers at 500 hPa and below show a warming trend in all seasons in all the chosen reanalyses and observations. Restricting the analysis to the 1998–2011 period, however, all the reanalyses show a cooling trend in the Arctic-mean 500 hPa temperature in autumn, and this also applies to both observations and the reanalyses when restricting the analysis to the locations with available IGRA radiosoundings. 

During this period, the surface observations mainly representing land areas surrounding the Arctic Ocean reveal no summertime trend, in contrast with the reanalyses whether restricted to the locations of the available surface observations or not.

In evaluating the reanalyses with observations, we find that the reanalyses agree better with each other at the available IGRA sounding locations than for the Arctic average, perhaps because the sounding observations were assimilated into reanalyses. 

Conversely, using the reanalysis data only from locations matching available surface (air) temperature observations does not improve the agreement between the reanalyses. At 925 hPa, CFSR deviates from the other three reanalyses, especially in summer after 2000, and it also deviates more from the IGRA radiosoundings than the other reanalyses do. The CFSR error in summer T₉₂₅ is due mainly to underestimations in the Canadian-Atlantic sector between 120° W and 0°. The other reanalyses also have negative biases in this longitude band.

Citation: Chung, C. E., Cha, H., Vihma, T., Räisänen, P., and Decremer, D.: On the possibilities to use atmospheric reanalyses to evaluate the warming structure in the Arctic, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 11209-11219, doi:10.5194/acp-13-11209-2013, 2013.”

=======================

via 11/18/13, “New paper finds warming has also ‘paused’ in the Arctic,” Hockey Schtick

 
“A paper published today in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics finds that the ‘pause’ in global warming is also true for the Arctic since 1998.”…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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17 years of no global warming proves lack of human connection per 2011 Lawrence Livermore research

“They find that tropospheric temperature records must be at least 17 years long to discriminate between internal climate noise and the signal of human-caused changes.”…

11/16/2011, “Separating signal and noise in climate warming,” Lawrence Livermore Labs press release, Anne M. Stark

“In order to separate human-caused global warming from the “noise” of purely natural climate fluctuations,
temperature records must be at least 17 years long, according to climate scientists.

To address criticism of the reliability of thermometer records of surface warming, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists analyzed satellite measurements of the temperature of the lower troposphere (the region of the atmosphere from the surface to roughly five miles above) and saw a clear signal of human-induced warming of the planet.

Satellite measurements of atmospheric temperature are made with microwave radiometers, and are completely independent of surface thermometer measurements. The satellite data indicate that the lower troposphere has warmed by roughly 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit since the beginning of satellite temperature records in 1979. This increase is entirely consistent with the warming of Earth’s surface estimated from thermometer records.

Recently, a number of global warming critics have focused attention on the behavior of Earth’s temperature since 1998. They have argued that there has been little or no warming over the last 10 to 12 years, and that computer models of the climate system are not capable of simulating such short “hiatus periods” when models are run with human-caused changes in greenhouse gases.

“Looking at a single, noisy 10-year period is cherry picking, and does not provide reliable information about the presence or absence of human effects on climate,” said Benjamin Santer, a climate scientist and lead author on an article in the Nov. 17 online edition of the Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres)….

“In fingerprinting, we analyze longer, multi-decadal temperature records, and we beat down the large year-to-year temperature variability caused by purely natural phenomena (like El NiÒ±os and La NiÒ±as). This makes it easier to identify a slowly-emerging signal arising from gradual, human-caused changes in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases,” Santer said.
 
The LLNL-led research shows that climate models can and do simulate short, 10- to 12-year “hiatus periods” with minimal warming, even when the models are run with historical increases in greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosol particles. They find that tropospheric temperature records must be at least 17 years long to discriminate between internal climate noise and the signal of human-caused changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.

“One individual short-term trend doesn’t tell you much about long-term climate change,” Santer said. “A single decade of observational temperature data is inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving human-caused warming signal. In both the satellite observations and in computer models, short, 10-year tropospheric temperature trends are strongly influenced by the large noise of year-to-year climate variability.”

The research team is made up of Santer and Livermore colleagues Charles Doutriaux, Peter Caldwell, Peter Gleckler, Detelina Ivanova, and Karl Taylor, and includes collaborators from Remote Sensing Systems, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Colorado, the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.K. Meteorology Office Hadley Centre, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.”

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11/22/13, “Price of Electricity Hit Record for October; Up 42% in Decade,“ CNS News, BLS data, record for month of October

==============================

10/30/13, “Climate Scientist: 73 UN Climate Models Wrong, No Global Warming in 17 Years,” CNS News, Barbara Hollingsworth

“Global temperatures collected in five official databases confirm that there has been no statistically significant global warming for the past 17 years, according to Dr. John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH)….

Christy told CNSNews that he analyzed all 73 models used in the 5AR and not one accurately predicted that the Earth’s temperature would remain flat since Oct. 1, 1996. (See Temperatures v Predictions 1976-2013.pdf)…

Using datasets of actual temperatures recorded by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA GISS), the United Kingdom’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the University of East Anglia (Hadley-CRU), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), satellites measuring atmospheric and deep oceanic temperatures, and a remote sensor system in California, Christy found that “all show a lack of warming over the past 17 years.”

“All 73 models’ predictions were on average three to four times what occurred in the real world,” Christy pointed out. “The closest was a Russian model that predicted a one-degree increase.”

“October 1st marks the 17th year of no global warming significantly different than zero,” agreed Dr. Patrick Michaels, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for the Study of Science. “And those 17 years correspond to the largest period of CO2 emissions by far over any other 17-year period in history.”…

Reaching the 17-year mark with no significant warming is a milestone because a climate change research team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory defined it as the minimum length of time necessary to “separate human-caused global warming from the ‘noise’ of purely natural climate fluctuations,” according to a 2011 press release….

Seventeen years without a temperature increase is also at odds with a report by the United Kingdom’s Met Office that said “global mean surface temperatures rose rapidly from the 1970s, but have been relatively flat over the most recent 15 years to 2013.” (See Met Office July 2013.PDF)

“The Met Office simply didn’t go back 17 years,” Christy said to explain the two-year discrepancy….

When asked how useful the just-released IPCC report will be in predicting future global temperatures, he said: “Not very. When 73 out of 73 [climate models] miss the point and predict temperatures that are significantly above the real world, they cannot be used as scientific tools, and definitely not for public policy decision-making.”

In 2012, Christy testified before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, telling senators that “the recent anomalous weather can’t be blamed on carbon dioxide.”

“We’ve had 17 years of no global warming, yet we have an energy policy right now that continues to harm American communities and will lead to much higher electricity prices all based on the ‘fact’ that the world is warming,” Daniel Kish, vice-president of the Institute for Energy Research, told CNSNews.com.

“Yet they cannot explain why all their projections are wrong.”…







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Soros funded think tank hosts group of 50 ex-cons, junkies and vagrants to advise new NY City Mayor de Blasio

11/21/13, "De Blasio gets policing advice from ex-cons," NY Post, Rosario and O'Neill

"Forget Ray Kelly, Bill de Blasio is getting his policing advice from the real experts — hardened criminals. A group of 50 ex-cons, junkies and chronic vagrants gathered at a Manhattan “Think Tank” Thursday to describe what they thought the NYPD should be doing to make their lives easier.

The felonious forum outlined a clear “get-soft-on-crime” vision.

“I like the idea of ending stop and frisk. That was the first thing that was totally there for me,” opined Mikell Green-Grand, a 49-year-old former jailbird who has convictions for grand larceny and identity theft.

Arthur Castillo, 38 — who has been convicted for possessing stolen property and assault — said he would be much obliged if the cops just left him alone to do his thing.

“Cops won’t leave us alone!” he said. “Newly released prisoners are watched by the police and a lot of us don’t feel we have an opportunity to readapt to normal life because we are treated as criminals even though we are free.”

The event, which was held in Morningside Heights, was hosted by an advisory group called Talking Transitions, run by liberal billionaire investment magnate George Soros."...

[Ed. note: George Soros Open Society and Rockefeller Brothers Fund often share interests as is the case in Talking Transitions. Actual elected officials are minor figures these days with billionaires like Soros and Rockefeller so embedded in government. It follows that voting doesn't matter much anymore
either. Soros and Rockefeller groups are active in local, regional, national, and global governance so we're relieved  of worrying about the whole mess].

(contining): "The goal was to offer de Blasio tips on “policing, corrections, parole policies and more.”

Since Talking Transitions is actually advising de Blasio during his preparations for assuming office, the opinions posited by the panel of crooks and deadbeats will be relayed to him and could have real policy effects.

“Bloomberg forgot about all of us. I’m hoping DeBlasio remembers us,” said Gregorio “Koko” Cruz, 63, who was convicted of first degree manslaughter, robbery, kidnapping and criminal possession of a weapon.

“After 12 years of Bloomberg, it’s time for a change,” the thief Green-Grand added.

Castillo, of Bayside, Queens, called for de Blasio to both “redistribute” the wealth and pay what is, in effect, protection money.

“A lot of money is spent on the prison system — it should be used to cultivate prisoners lives,” he opined. “The money should be redistributed to help those who want to change while they are incarcerated.”

Other ex-cons suggested that de Blasio make the city easier for illegal immigrants to find work. “Currently, our policies with foreigners coming in here is a problem,” said ex-con Michael Francis.

A day before the convicts talked policy uptown, De Blasio toured Talking Transitions SoHo headquarters.

The group says it is “an open conversation about the future of New York City…to help shape the transition to a new mayor.”

De Blasio didn’t appear at the event, but he will be brought up to speed by reps from the organization, who partnered with the The Fortune Society, which helps prisoners transition into the real world after release."

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"Fortunes of Change: The Rise of the Liberal Rich and the Remaking of America," David Callahan, 2010

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11/22/13, "Leave an Idea, Take an Idea," NY Times Editorial Board

"Saturday is the last day for New Yorkers to give Bill de Blasio, the mayor-elect, a piece of their mind under the big white “Talking Transition” tent on Canal Street and Avenue of the Americas. Since the Nov. 5 election, inside that tent, in mobile tents that roamed the boroughs and online at talkingtransitionnyc.com, thousands have offered suggestions on stickers and postcards; sent emails; taped videos; and attended forums on topics like “food justice,” affordable housing and immigrant integration....

Mr. de Blasio had nothing to do with Talking Transition; it’s a private project of the Open Society Foundations, run by George Soros, and nine other groups. But he and the leaders of his transition team have dropped by the tent, and Mr. de Blasio, who could hardly have done otherwise, welcomed the effort. “They’ll become part of our agenda if we find that they’re helpful ideas," he said, trying to sound receptive and noncommittal. Talking Transition has tried to tap a hunger for civic participation that many New Yorkers profess to feel. Not that they necessarily act on it; in a city of more than eight million, only about a million people voted in the mayoral election, apparently a record low. Openness and inclusion were central themes of Mr. de Blasio’s campaign, but since the election his public schedule has been light."

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1/23/12, "George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War," Daily Beast, John Arlidge

"As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself. “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”"...





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JFK 1961 speech to newspaper publishers about grave threat of Communism to the US, our way of life is under attack in undeclared war, that Communists rely on infiltration of the press

4/27/61, “John F. Kennedy Speeches," “The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, April 27, 1961″ “President John F. Kennedy, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City,″ JFKLibrary.org

“Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

    I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here tonight. 

     You bear heavy responsibilities these days and an article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession.

You may remember that in 1851 the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Karl Marx.
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We are told that foreign correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment, a salary which he and Engels ungratefully labeled as the “lousiest petty bourgeois cheating.”

But when all his financial appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full time to the cause that would bequeath the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold war.

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If only this capitalistic New York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have been different. And I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty-stricken appeal for a small increase in the expense account from an obscure newspaper man.

I have selected as the title of my remarks tonight “The President and the Press.” Some may suggest that this would be more naturally worded “The President Versus the Press.” But those are not my sentiments tonight….

My topic tonight is a more sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors.
I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years.
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Whatever our hopes may be for the future–for reducing this threat or living with it–there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security–a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.
This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President–two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

I.                                          

The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.
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But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country’s peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of “clear and present danger,” the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public’s need for national security.

Today no war has been declared–and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. 

Our way of life is under attack.  

Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired. If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of “clear and present danger,” then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions–by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy

• that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–
• on infiltration instead of invasion,
• on subversion instead of elections,
• on intimidation instead of free choice,

on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security–and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.

For the facts of the matter are that this nation’s foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation’s covert preparations to counter the enemy’s covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.

The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.

The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration. On many earlier occasions, I have said–and your newspapers have constantly said–that these are times that appeal to every citizen’s sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal.

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or any new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: “Is it news?” All I suggest is that you add the question: “Is it in the interest of the national security?” And I hope that every group in America–unions and businessmen and public officials at every level– will ask the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to the same exacting tests.

And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.

Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.

II. It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation–an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people–to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well--the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed....

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed–and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment– the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants”–but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion....

III.

It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. Now the links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the world, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one world’s efforts to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.

And so it is to the printing press–to the recorder of man’s deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news–that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.”

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Prince Charles informs villagers he's seizing metal and mineral rich land under their homes, says he has ancient right to their land, villagers can't afford legal fees to fight greed of Prince Charles-UK Daily Mail

11/20/13, "Villagers brand Prince Charles a bully for sending them letters invoking ancient right to mine under their homes," UK Daily Mail, Steve Nolan

"Prince Charles has been branded a 'bully' by residents of Cornish village after he wrote to them invoking an ancient right - to mine under their homes.

The Prince of Wales's Duchy of Cornwall estate sent letters to residents of Stoke Climsland to inform them that he owns the land beneath their properties.

The Duchy wants the property owners to alter their deeds to reflect his right to the metals and elements buried beneath their floors. 

The letter has sparked fears that the claim could indicate plans for fracking or mining in the area, but the estate has denied it has such an intent.

Homeowners in the area, which has a population of just 1,600, say that their deeds make no mention of the Prince's estate owning the land, but the Duchy says that a 19th century Act of Parliament granted it the mines.

Residents have until December 3 to contest the claim - an action that could land homeowners with legal bills running into thousands of pounds.

Former policeman Clive Donner, 60, said: 'When we purchased the property I examined the deeds. 'Nowhere does it mention that Prince Charles has the mining and mineral rights in or under our homes.

'I also have deeds from as far back as 1847 for our property and again it does not mention anywhere anything about rights of the Duchy.

'They say they are not planning any mining but just following the law.

'If this was the case why not just let the whole mining minerals application dissolve into history, or at the very least state that the Duchy has no intention now or in the future to conduct any mining in or under any homeowners' property.

He added: 'The document states that if we do not reply it will take this as meaning we agree to the Duchy's request and application.

'Employing a legal adviser would cost a small fortune and is out of reach for all of us.

'This is nothing more than bully tactics and has been done to ensure that the Duchy gets what it wants and that we, the actual owners, and the people who live here have no chance to challenge the application.'

Cornwall sits on top on vast beds of metals and minerals and moves are underway to revive its famous tin mining industry.

Duchy spokesmen deny the move signals any intent to start boring into the ground beneath the village's historic buildings - which date back as far as the 16th century.

During the last few years experts discovered large deposits of an ultra-rare element - indium - at Cornwall's South Crofty, near Redruth, worth an estimated £200 million.

The sought-after substance is used to make liquid crystal displays displays for iPads, satnavs and computer monitors.

But the Duchy insists it has effectively owned the sub-soil beneath the 130,000-acre estate since its creation in 1337 and is 'simply registering its existing rights.'

A spokesman said mining and mineral rights were not included on the original Stoke Climsland deeds because a 19th-century act of parliament granted the mines and minerals reservations separately to the Duchy.

He added: 'Therefore the mines and minerals reservations do not have to be included in each individual sale.'

The villagers' outrage comes after the Marquess of Salisbury angered residents of Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire earlier this month, after asserting his rights to his neighbours' land so he can dig for minerals under their homes.

Campaigners rallied together to form a Facebook protest group after the former Tory Part leader in the House of Lords claimed his 'market and fair rights, sporting rights and rights in respect of the mines and minerals beneath the property'.

Some residents feared that his claims may indicate plans for fracking in the area. Some suggested picketing the marquess' ancestral home, Hatfield House, wearing medieval costumes and 'waving pitchforks and burning torches'.

His decision to register follows a law introduced by the Labour government in 2002 that stated all manorial rights would be lost if not registered with the Land Registry within an 11-year window.

Now a number of landowners across the country are applying for manorial rights before that window closes this year."

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Indium found under villagers' historic homes is used in manufacturing solar panels. Prince Charles must want to mine under an historic village because he "cares" about the planet: 

9/27/11, "Researchers Use Carbon Nanotubes to Make Solar Cells Affordable, Flexible," Science Daily

"Currently, indium tin oxide is the dominant material used in transparent conductor applications, but the material has two potential limitations. Indium tin oxide is mechanically brittle, which precludes its use in applications that require mechanical flexibility. In addition, Indium tin oxide relies on the relatively rare element indium, so the projected increased demand for solar cells could push the price of indium to problematically high levels."...(parag. 5)





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