Tea Party rally in Wisconsin begins with The Pledge of Allegiance

• 2/19/11, How a Tea Party rally starts

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Earth magnetic pole shifting 40 miles per year due to heat from Earth core

2/20/11, "Pilots, boaters adjust to shift in magnetic north," (Florida) Sun-Sentinel, Ken Kaye

"Magnetic north, the point at the top of the Earth that determines compass headings, is shifting its position at a rate of about 40 miles per year. In geologic terms,

• it's racing from the Arctic Ocean near Canada toward Russia.

As a result, everyone who uses a compass, even as a backup to modern GPS navigation systems, needs to be aware of the shift, make adjustments or obtain updated charts to ensure they get where they intend to go, authorities say. That includes pilots, boaters

• and even hikers.

"You could end up a few miles off or a couple hundred miles off, depending how far you're going," said Matthew Brock, a technician with Lauderdale Speedometer and Compass, a Fort Lauderdale company that repairs compasses.

Although the magnetic shift has little impact on the average person and presents no danger to the Earth overall, it is costing the aviation and marine industries millions of dollars to upgrade navigational systems and charts.

• Why is magnetic north shifting?

The Earth's core of hot liquid iron is constantly moving. That motion, combined with forces such as the Earth's rotation, dictate the position of magnetic north, not to be confused with geographic north, or the North Pole.

"Magnetic north is shifting all the time; it's a continuous process, not an event," said Jeffrey Love, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey Geomagnetism Program, based in Golden, Colo.

Over the past century, the shift has been increasing in speed. It went from creeping as slow as nine miles per year in the early 1900s to more than 35 miles per year in the 2000s. However, that acceleration

• also is part of natural cycle, Love said.

"In 10 to 20 years from now, it might be slowing down," he said.

Currently, the shift creates about a one-degree difference in compass direction every five years, Love said. Accordingly, the Federal Aviation Administration evaluates airport runway numbers every five years, said Kathleen Bergen, FAA spokeswoman.

The FAA could not say how many airports are affected. However, scores of large and small airports in the United States have either changed or plan to change their runways' numbers, which are based on compass directions.

Palm Beach International Airport changed its three runway numbers in December 2009 at a cost of $268,686. That included

• repainting the runway numbers, replacing signs and updating publications, said airport spokeswoman Casandra Davis.

Now the airport's main east-west runway is numbered 10-Left and 28-Right. Previously, it was 9-Left and 27-Right.

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport plans to renumber its south runway as part of the $791 million expansion in 2014, said Mike Nonnemacher, the airport's director of operations. Shortly after that, the north runway numbers will be upgraded, he said.

• "We wish to keep our runway designations close to what the compass says," Nonnemacher said.

When Miami International Airport's new north runway was built in 2003, it was given an updated number based on the magnetic shift, said airport spokesman Greg Chin.

• "At that time, we had foresight to number the runway toward where it will be shifting," he said.

Because GPS navigation draws on satellites,

• it has no reliance on magnetic north.
  

On the other hand, satellites and GPS systems can malfunction. For that reason, Tom Cartier recommends all pilots and boaters

• keep a compass handy as backup.

"The magnetic compass is what gets you home in your boat or plane when everything else quits," said Cartier, a senior deck instructor at Maritime Professional Training in Fort Lauderdale.

• "It's a very, very valuable piece of equipment."

Cartier said large ships and planes have sophisticated electronic navigation systems, but the vast majority of small boats and planes have magnetic compasses and rely on them heavily.

• "They don't have the money to spend for a sophisticated system," he said.

He added that boaters should always bring updated maps, showing the latest corrections for the magnetic north shift,

• even if they have GPS.

The oil industry also relies on knowing the exact position of magnetic north, as companies use a device, similar to a compass, to determine what angle to drill into the earth, Love said.

"They don't drill straight down," he said. "They need to orient their drill bits to know which way they're going."

Many mobile companies equip smart phones with magnetometers, allowing their customers to see what direction they're heading. Those phones are likely to have a device that adjusts for the shift in magnetic north, said Manoj Nair, a research scientist with the

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Data Center.

Humans aren't the only ones affected by magnetic north. Birds that fly south for the winter and some sea turtles that migrate from Africa to South America must learn to adjust their senses so

• they end up migrating in the right direction, Love said.

"Some sea turtles live for a long period of time, up to 100 years," he said. "They have to accommodate the change in the magnetic field, because

• it changes substantially over 100 years.""

via MichaelSavage.com

John Batchelor, we are not your 'comrades,' unless of course you mean the duplicitous left. Updated, he doubles down

Update, John Batchelor doubles down, 2/22-2/23/11: Between 12 midnight and 12:30 tonight Batchelor introduced the topic of Wisconsin and that it had a behind the scenes story. The story of Wisconsin to objective people is the miraculous showing on Saturday of the fledgling grassroots Tea Party people--(who said they would have been there earlier in the week, but they were working). Batchelor goes the other way, gives the spotlight to the big union side, bringing on a guest from the NY Times. Among the breathless Times' person's first words were, Koch brothers, and $100 billion, so I turned off the radio. I had never heard of the Koch brothers until about a year ago when the media started going after them.

The linked article above describes last Saturday's grassroots effort in Wisconsin. It even mentions Americans for Prosperity (a Koch supported group) did send some buses, but as the article describes, it was people on the ground who instigated the one day event. By freely mentioning the Koch group, the writer apparently didn't think it was some big deal "behind the scenes" that no one should know about. (I happened to read this report yesterday, had never heard of the author before, but now am aware he's the son of Jim Ryun, has a Republican background, and is one of many people involved in right of center activism today).

The main point is I've listened to Mr. Batchelor regularly for about 8 of the past 10 years. I've only heard him mention the name George Soros once, and it was in passing, something like he was a philanthropist and a refugee, a romantic figure of sorts. George Soros is the most powerful person in politics today and has been treated as a head of state for many years. This despite his criminal and continual predatory financial dealings and pointed efforts at undermining the United States. He is very active at the UN and backs a multi trillion dollar pressure group trying to force global warming taxes and regulations into the life of every person in America. He is allowed to be involved at the highest levels (see 2nd to last para). He has waged his war on all fronts, not just politics. He wants the entire US culture destroyed and changed. Accordingly he's feted in Hollywood. The state of California today is an example of his success.

• This is really a waste of time, because everyone knows this about Soros. The story is really about Batchelor from whom I've never heard a discussion of Soros in all these years. Just the one sugar coated mention a year or two ago.
  

The people have one brief shining moment last Saturday in Wisconsin, and Batchelor trashes it AND gives red meat to the left. Here is a better description of the Tea Party movement just for the record, 10/29/10, "Birth of a Movement, Tea Parties arose from conservatives steeped in crisis," Wall St. Journal, Blackmon, Levitz, Beraon, and Lauren.
------------------------------------------------

John Batchelor's radio show used to champion big truths that weren't getting the coverage they deserved elsewhere and were important for Americans. His views, type of guests, and manner of interviewing have changed a lot in recent months. Which is fine and must be rewarding for him. On Sunday night's (2/20-2/21) radio show leading to the 12:30am break, Mr. Batchelor interviewed Matt Bai from the NY Times. He sympathized with Bai who said Obama knows how to do what needs to be done but the Republicans are stopping him (for whatever reasons). Batchelor did a final pander/scold by giving what he said were illustrations of how Republicans could and should be doing the kinds of things Obama wanted. He admonished what he termed "my comrades" (Batchelor has said in the past he's a Republican) for not going along with more vast public works projects (assuming that's the key to saving the country). If by "my comrades" he means the duplicitous left, that makes sense.

• Mr. Batchelor may have been a "comrade" of right of center Americans at one time, but those days are long gone.

He should drop the act and the sanctimonious scolding. We get more than enough of it from other Soros Republicans.



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California's Delta Smelt and deep pocketed leftwing legal boutiques raising your food prices

"A victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made...by greens."... 12/28/10, "Fresno, Zimbabwe"

"...Fresno, Calif., stands as the de facto capital of California's mighty Central Valley, the breadbasket of America." But

• 24.1% of Fresno's families are going hungry.
• ----------------------
  

2/18/11, "California's Delta Smelt is raising your food prices," Big Government

"The Commerce Clause that regulates interstate commerce is at issue in the legal battle of Obamacare. Can the federal government tell individuals that they must buy insurance? Not as well known is how the same commerce clause is destroying farms and raising food prices by stopping the flow of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Rivers to the Central Valley in California. The feds at the urging of the state government has

• literally turned off the tap, destroying prime farmland in order to benefit the sex lives of the Delta Smelt.

Approximately 85-90% of the water from this primary source has been shut off to the Central Valley. The smelt is a fish so insignificant that no one other than the Bezerkely-enviro-wackos and some local fisherman have heard about this tiny fish.

The smelt is fish that is native to California and, for the most part, is known to fisherman simply as “bait”. The California enviros’ zeal to increase the population of smelt has led to a terrible federal, legal decision that shut down the water to thousands of farmers in the Central Valley; the nation’s largest and most productive farm land. Thousands of farmers there are suffering with

• unemployment over 20%,
  

scores of farms have been lost and tens of thousands of agricultural workers are now without jobs. If California didn’t have enough economic problems, you can add shooting yourself in the foot. The inmates are now officially running the asylum. If we needed a poster for enviro-insanity it would be the promotion of the lowly smelt over the interests of:

• farmers, food production, food prices, jobs and California families.

Fortunately, the GOP is now leading the charge is to cut funding for the programs that help the smelt at the expense of the farmers. This could lead to turning on the tap to the farmers. But California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is fighting the farmers; leading the opposition in the Senate and choosing to stand by the smelt over people. The Pacific Legal Foundation, (PLF) a non-profit public interest group has sided with the farmers was recently successful in obtaining a new federal district court decision to force the state

• to re-examine its justification for turning off the spigot.

On Tuesday, the PLF made their case in front of the Ninth “Circus” Court of Appeals hoping for permanent relief. They argued that the Commerce Clause doesn’t allow the feds to regulate intra-state species (species that don’t cross state lines) with no commercial sales. Let’s just hope the people prevail over the bait, however, with the insane Ninth Circus Court no outcome is certain."

"Congress created Dust Bowl" photo Big Government

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Reference: 10/9/09, "Environmental lawsuits rake in billions for lawyers," by Jake Putnam

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Reference: 9/22/09, "Senate rejects measure to turn California water on," Washington Times, Amanda Carpenter
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12/30/10, "California’s Central Valley: Zimbabwe West?," Hot Air, Ed Morrissey
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• Reference: 11/19/2009, "Congressional Water Report- KMPH Fox 26 Central San Joaquin Valley News Source, by Rich Rodriguez

• Reference: 9/22/09, "Senate rejects measure to turn California water on," Washington Times, Amanda Carter

• 12/15/10, "Judge says Delta pumping rules, meant to protect fish, are too restrictive," Contra Costa Times by Mike Taugher

Nevertheless, so-called environmentalists hope for even tighter water restrictions:

12/14/10, "Doug Obegi a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council who worked on the case...

predicted changes ordered by Wanger would not allow state and federal water projects to return to the record-breaking

pumping levels they reached from 2000 to 2007.

• It is possible, Obegi said, that the rewrite might even result in
  
• tighter restrictions."..

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PBS thanks MoveOn.org for all their help getting them more cash-Twitter

"PBS sends belated Valentine to MoveOn.org," BigJournalism.com

"On February 18, our taxpayer-subsidized entertainers at PBS gave a little shoutout to one of their most stout supporters. On its Twitter feed on Friday, PBS heartily thanked the extremist left-wing activist group Moveon.org for its support in helping the broadcaster push for greater amounts of money from the pockets of the taxpayers and continue its feeding at the public trough."...

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In 2008 NY Mayor Bloomberg said US ethanol rules will cause people to starve to death-Reuters

EU agreed: 2/11/2008, "The European Commission said last month that... the drive for these fuels has done unforeseen damage, like endangering rain forests in Asia and causing a rise in food prices"...

• 2/11/2008, "Bloomberg slams US Energy law over corn ethanol" Reuters by Louis Charbonneau and Timothy Gardner

United Nations, "A new US energy law will cause an increase in global food prices and lead to starvation deaths worldwide because it continues to promote corn ethanol, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday.

"People literally will starve to death in parts of the world,

• it always happens when food prices go up,"
  

Bloomberg told reporters after addressing a U.N. General Assembly debate on climate change.

The new U.S. law, which came into force late last year, increased fivefold the required amount of blending of biofuels like corn ethanol -- creating higher demand for the grain that

• will push up corn prices.

By 2022 some 15 billion gallons of the required 36 billion could come from corn ethanol, with the rest mandated to come from lower-carbon sources

• such as crop waste and switchgrass.

The new law favored corn ethanol by continuing to subsidize it while taxing sugar ethanol, Bloomberg said. This is because corn ethanol is mainly domestically produced while sugar ethanol is imported from Brazil and subject to import tariffs.

Bloomberg joined other critics of corn ethanol production in saying it was not a net producer of energy, unlike sugar ethanol. That is, corn ethanol does not yield more energy than it takes to produce, transport and use it.

• Biofuels are seen by some people as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and boosting energy security by providing an alternative to fossil fuels.

Richard Branson, the billionaire British entrepreneur and head of Virgin Group, agreed that sugar ethanol was preferable to corn-based biofuel. It would make more sense, he said, for the United States to grow food and let countries

• like Brazil use their land to produce sugar for biofuels.

"I think if America got rid of the importation duty on sugar-based ethanol, that's what would happen and I think the world would benefit from that," Branson told reporters.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro blasted the Bush administration's biofuels policy as "genocidal" in a series of articles last year, saying

• they threatened to worsen global hunger by pushing up prices for food crops used to make ethanol.

GLOBAL WARMING IS AS BAD AS TERRORISM

The international Sugar Cane Industry Union (Unica) has said that sugar cane-based fuel yields more energy than corn fuel, providing seven liters of ethanol per hectare compared with three liters with corn. The group also claimed that sugar ethanol production costs are lower.

The European Commission said last month that the European Union would set tougher environmental criteria for biofuels after admitting that the drive for these fuels has done unforeseen damage, like endangering rain forests in Asia

• and causing a rise in food prices.

Bloomberg also told reporters that global warming is just as much a threat to the human race as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

"Terrorists kill people, weapons of mass destruction have the potential to kill enormous numbers of people, global warming has the potential to kill everybody," said the head of the city where nearly 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks.

"This is really just as lethal, it's just that the results are something we will face long term," he said.

The mayor has set a goal of reducing New York's greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030 through measures like converting the taxi cab fleet to hybrid cars by 2012 and trying to reduce city driving through "congestion pricing" or

• charging vehicles a user fee to the heart of the city's business district."

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NY Mayor Bloomberg says global warming as dangerous as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction

2/11/2008, "Bloomberg slams U.S. energy law over corn ethanol," Environmental News Network, from Reuters report, by Louis Charbonneau and Timothy Gardner

"Terrorists kill people, weapons of mass destruction have the potential to kill enormous numbers of people, global warming has the potential to kill everybody," said the head of the city where nearly 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks.

"This is really just as lethal, it's just that the results are something we will face long term," he said."...

• (NY Sun report below)
  

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(Mayor Bloomberg has a business devoted to profits in the global warming and carbon trading industry. Since 2007 he has called for more taxes on Americans as reparation for climate crime. From his UN speech 3 years ago):

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2/12/2008, "Mayor (Bloomberg) Compares Threat of Global Warming to Terrorism," NY Sun, Benny Avni, United Nations

"While he acknowledged that scientists are unable to predict its consequences, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday compared the scourge of global warming to

• the threat of terrorism and the proliferation of

• weapons of mass destruction.

Although it is a "long-term" fight, he said, reducing gas emissions may save the life of "everybody" on the planet, the same way that fighting terrorism and its proliferation saves lives in shorter terms.

Addressing a U.N. climate change conference, the mayor also announced a new plan to reduce the use of tropical hardwoods by New York City and told delegates that the city plans to host a meeting in June of leaders from 20 major world cities to discuss ways for the largest municipalities

• to reduce global warming.
  

Other participants in the conference called for a "war" against climate change, in which

• the United Nations would serve as a
  
• front-line combatant.

Mr. Bloomberg renewed his call, made first late last year, for taxing countries such as America that emit large amounts of carbons, which are believed to cause changes in the planet's climate. "So long as there's no penalty or cost involved in producing greenhouse gases, there will be no incentive" to meet

• targets set by international institutions,
  

the mayor told the General Assembly. "For that reason, I believe the U.S. should enact

• a tax on carbon emissions.

"Terrorists kill people. Weapons of mass destruction have the potential to kill an enormous amount of people," Mr. Bloomberg told reporters after addressing the U.N. General Assembly, but

• "global warming in the long term has the potential to kill everybody."

Like smoking, Mr. Bloomberg said, these are preventable killers. "We should go after terrorists every place in this world, find them and kill them, plain and simple," he said. If weapons of mass destruction "get out of the hands of the countries that have them and get into the hands of terrorists, the potential is just mind-boggling," he added. And while global warming "is a much longer-term thing," he said, it "has all of the same potentials of destroying the planet that we live on.

• No scientist knows for sure what's going to happen, but you don't want to wait to find out."

Mr. Bloomberg announced that in addition to his initiatives to convert the city's taxi fleet to hybrid fuels, devise a plan for congestion tax, "green our buildings," and plant more trees, the city would curb the use of tropical hardwoods, which it purchases to the tune of $1 million a year, causing rainforest deforestation. The city will immediately reduce by 20% the use of such hardwoods, which are used in park benches, ferry landings, beach boardwalks, and the Brooklyn Bridge walkway. A new design study would devise ways to replace them altogether in the long term, the mayor said. The two-day conference, titled "Addressing Climate Change: the United Nations and the World at Work," included, in addition to members of the General Assembly, such stars of entertainment and industry as

• film actress Daryl Hannah and
  
• Virgin Atlantic Airways founder Richard Branson.
  

Mr. Branson called on governments to match his company's announced prize of $25 million to encourage scientists and inventors to find a technological solution that would

• "avert a catastrophe" to the environment.
  

• "We need a war room," he said.

On another issue, Mr. Bloomberg told The New York Sun that the Fire Department of New York has had access to the U.N. compound on First Avenue, and "we think we have plans if there were fire" there. "The United Nations is making progress," he added. "They're going in the right direction, they are not there yet." Specifically, he indicated, plans should be made ahead of the ambitious U.N. renovation plan this spring. "Construction is always a dangerous period, so we're going to have to work very carefully with them going forward."

Jurisdiction issues have hampered relations between local emergency teams and the United Nations. Most recently, the organization declined to notify local authorities when workers got sick after handling boxes from

• North Korea at a U.N. basement.
  

After the Sun reported on the incident, FDNY officials were permitted to examine the boxes and determined that mold was the cause of the sickness. "We are not here to try to take their sovereign right to dictate what goes on, on their property," Mr. Bloomberg said of the United Nations. "But given the interaction with the emergency responders in the city, we have to work together.""

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Bloomberg addresses United Nations in 2008.

• photo from Gothamist.

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Reference: 4/12/10, "Aides who knew Bloomberg best leaving City Hall," AP report from NY Post, Regarding Bloomberg's image as an international global warming star.

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Additional citation for Bloomberg 'lethal' quote re global warming:

2/12/2008, "Threat level is 'green,'" NY Post by David Seifman

"Global warming is "just as lethal" as terrorism because it "has the potential to kill everybody," Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.

"This is just as important as stopping nuclear proliferation," he told reporters after addressing an environmental conference at the United Nations.

"This is just as important as stopping terrorism . . . This really is just as lethal. It's just the results are something we will face long term."

Bloomberg has been hammering hard on his environmental plank since April, when his administration released an ambitious blueprint for cutting the city's carbon emissions by 30 percent through 2030.

Yesterday, the mayor offered a frightening vision of the unimpeded effects of climate change, arguing it has the same potential for causing calamity as terrorism and nuclear weapons falling in the hands of the wrong people.

• "We should go after terrorists every place in the world, find them and kill them," the mayor said.

"Weapons of mass destruction - if they get out of the hands of the countries that have them and get into the hands of terrorists, the potential is just mind-boggling . . . Global warming is a much longer-term thing. But it has all the same potential of destroying the planet we live on."

In his speech before the General Assembly, Bloomberg called for a carbon tax in the United States and commitments by China and India to "accept the burden of greatness" by setting energy-efficiency standards."...

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