Leftists and the media.

There's an Elvis Costello song, "Hand in Hand," which, like many of his songs, seems superficially sweet, but is dark.

I won't ask you to apologize
You don't have to forgive me
But if I'm gonna go dow-ow-own
You're gonna come with me

Hand in Hand
Hand in Hand
Hand in Hand...

I've cut out some lyrics there. You get the point. Everytime the left gets blowed up, there's the media, jumping on the grenade, killing themselves while failing to save any of their comrades.

The controversy surrounding the global warming scandal today deepened after a BBC correspondent admitted he was sent the leaked emails more than a month before they were made public.

Paul Hudson, weather presenter and climate change expert, claims the documents allegedly sent between some of the world's leading scientists are of a direct result of an article he wrote.

In his BBC blog two days ago, Hudson said: 'I was forwarded the chain of emails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the world's leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article "Whatever Happened To Global Warming".'

That essay, written last month, argued that for the last 11 years there had not been an increase in global temperatures.

So he got the attention of the leaker, figuring he was an honest broker in the debate. (There is no debate; the science is settled -- Added by MinTruth.) But he did nothing with him.

This doesn't mean that this particular presenter is to blame-- but someone in the BBC quashed the story, obviously.

...

The emails apparently show researchers discussing how to 'spin' climate data and how that information should be presented to the media.

In his blog for BBC Look North, Hudson added: 'The emails released on the internet as a result of CRU being hacked into are identical to the ones I was forwarded and read at the time and so, as far as l can see, they are authentic.'
He also publishes a link to the messages which global warming sceptics claim provide 'smoking gun' evidence that some scientist talked about manipulated data to support the theory that climate change is being caused by mankind.

Hudson does not explain why he sat on the controversial information for so long...

My guess is that the explanation concerns the forbiddence of his superiors, and if he says that, he'll be out of a job.

...but added: 'I do intend to write a blog regarding the CRU being hacked into, and the possible implications of this very serious affair.'

Former Chancellor Lord Lawson has called for an inquiry into the scandal, warning the credibility of UK science is at stake.

It comes amid pressure on the professor at the centre of the scandal to quit from his position at the CRU.

George Monbiot, who previously said there was no point "pretending" these emails weren't deadly damaging, is calling for Phil Jones to quit. And Monbiot is a "leading environmentalist" writing chiefly on "green issues."

I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I'm dismayed and deeply shaken,' he said. 'There are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad.

'There appears to be evidence of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a Freedom of Information request.

'Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

'The head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.'

How about analyzed for the first time?

Thanks to Lance.

Posted by: Ace at 04:34 PM | Comments (130)
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Started off by Secundus, with some suggestions by Hutch, and then finally written into the whole song by GrimJack.

The 12 Days Of Obamas (pronounced like Christmas at the end, you see -- Oba-Mass). more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:51 PM | Comments (96)
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And my prayers have been answered. An interview with the New Jesus on Old Jesus' birthday!

Honestly, people, I just can't get enough President Prime-Time.

It's unbelievable -- I don't know what the hell I used to watch on the television before he came along. Like, I don't know. "Shows" and stuff. Some football.

Seems so silly now, so trivial.

Posted by: Ace at 01:42 PM | Comments (218)
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Confirmation of Allah's theory -- theory? common sense, I'd call it -- that an independent bid that draws from the right will put Obama back in office from 2013 to 2017. He quotes Groundskeeper Willie: I warned ye.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that if the choice is between President Obama, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Dobbs, Obama leads 42% to 34% with Dobbs pulling 14% of the vote.

With Mike Huckabee as the Republican nominee, Obama leads 42% to 36%, with Dobbs at 12%.

If Sarah Palin is the GOP nominee, itÂ’s Obama 44%, Palin 37% and Dobbs 12%Â…

With Dobbs out of the equation, Obama and Romney are tied at 44%, Obama leads Huckabee 45% to 41%, and the president leads Palin 46% to 43%.

Note how close Palin is. Actually, everyone's close (and I imagine Pawlenty and other lesser-known, unpolled names would fare just as well), but it's a bit of good Thanksgiving news for the Palinistas that she's only behind Captain Wonderful by 3 points.

Assuming no third-party bid, I mean.

In other poll news: Yesterday Obama logged his lowest level of support yet in Rassmussen -- 45% support, 55% opposition. That changes slightly today -- 46% to 54% -- meaning that Obama's new normal is the mid-forties, and 40% his likely new bottom.

And, as they say, 40 is the new 30. (Well, I say that. Actually I say 40 is new 26 but no one will believe me.) The rest of the news is bad too:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15. This is the second straight day at -15, the lowest Approval Index rating yet measured for President Obama (see trends).

Seventy-four percent (74%) of African-Americans Strongly Approve along with just 19% of white voters (see other recent demographic highlights from the tracking poll).

Among all voters, just 34% now give the President good or excellent marks on his handling of the economy while 47% say he is doing a poor job in that arena. On national security issues, 42% say good or excellent while 41% say poor.
Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters believe that political correctness kept the military from preventing the Fort Hood shootings.

61% of independents now disapprove of Obama. 61%. That's some serious stuff right there. 38% approve, which is not exactly awful, but it's certainly not good.

Not a poll but a forecast: 2012 is projected to have a very bad unemployment rate of 7.5%.

The unemployment rate will remain elevated for years to come, according to a forecast released Tuesday by the Federal Reserve that addresses for the first time economic conditions at the time of the next presidential election.

It paints a grim picture. Top Fed officials expect the unemployment rate to remain in the 6.8 to 7.5 percent range at the end of 2012 and said it could take “about five or six years” from now for economic activity to return to normal. The jobless rate was 10.2 percent in October. …

The math is simple: The U.S. economy is capable of growing at roughly 2.5 to 3 percent a year, thanks to population growth and technological improvement, and needs to grow faster than that to create large numbers of jobs and significantly improved standards of living.

Following the last recession of comparable depth for example, in 1981-82, gross domestic product growth averaged a 7.8 percent annual rate for four quarters.

In this recession, by contrast, the five current Fed governors and 12 presidents of regional Fed banks expect growth of 2.5 to 3.5 percent in 2010 — which would be enough to bring the unemployment rate down only slightly.

But that's not necessarily doom for Obama. Bear in mind, by that point, people will have adjusted to 10-11% unemployment (17-20% real unemployment) as the new normal. Any improvement from there will be welcome -- and Obama will get the odd "credit" of getting us an unemployment rate of "only" 7.5%. Yes, Obama will be rewarded for his own incompetence, the same he's been his whole life.

He will be vulnerable in this scenario, but hardly doomed. Bear in mind, although the economy was growing in 1996, it wasn't nearly firing on all cylinders, and was still weak-ish. And yet, simply for having a growing economy -- not a barnburner, as we'd later see in 1998-1999 -- Clinton was considered well-nigh undefeatable in 1996.

I gotta be honest: I didn't even vote. It was clear to me fairly early in the season that Clinton's growing, but not hardy, economy was good enough to almost guarantee him a victory in 1996.

We didn't make much of a case for ourselves with Bob Dole, but he was a small factor. As they say, the election was a referendum on the incumbent, primarily, and with a bit of economic growth, people decided they'd stick with what was working.

No one will be happy with a 7-8% unemployment rate. But given an easing of the 11% unemployment rate -- and who knows, maybe it will get up to 12% -- people will be at least appeased. And Obama will have the media crowing about the "economic miracle" of Obama delivering us an economy that hearkens back to the days of bread and honey of the Ford Administration.

Vulnerable in 2012, yes. But we will need a strong candidate, and yes, we will need a lot of those hated moderates and independents people are always telling me apparently don't count in electoral politics. Not saying we need to sell-out to them, but we will need them on board.

Posted by: Ace at 01:23 PM | Comments (187)
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Kinduva slow day around here, but there is some genuine news out there. Here's what caught my eye:

(1) Speculation that the White House is purging its original far-Left torture and detainee policy guys is here.

(2) Seriously bad news for Obama in the polls is here. Definitely take a look at the graphic on the right left side showing that on Afghanistan most people split between sending more than 40,000 troops (generally the win-the-war folks) and retreating (Leftists). Sending less than 40,000 got a fraction of the votes. So, Obama chose that and managed to piss off both the Right and the Left (see Laura's post below).

(3) Politico finally notices something we've been remarking on here for months: the President's unprecedented misuse of the word "unprecedented." Almost every time Obama says he's done something "historic" or "unprecedented" it's really not. (See e.g. the "first" Hispanic Supreme Court Justice, the "first" presidential address to school children, the "first" presidential townhall in China, and on and on.)

(4) The Kindle now has PDF support. If they'd finally use ePub I'd buy one. As it is, I can read ePub on my iTouch as well as "Kindle for iPhone", so I'm not gonna bother to switch.

(5) The ClimateGate issue is slowly penetrating more mainstream (by which I mean Leftist) publications. I appreciated Megan McArdle's latest on it.

Ista-update: And of course, there's Ace. Scroll down, folks.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:58 AM | Comments (101)
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Worth reading. This guy filed his own FOIA requests, and each was denied for spurious reasons.

When this guy showed himself to be determined, and exposed their reasons for rejection to be made-up nonsense, Phil Jones issued this now-notorious email:

Mike,

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I donÂ’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

Â…

Cheers
Phil

And he writes stuff like this:

Mike, Ray, Caspar,

A couple of things – don’t pass on either.
Â…
2. You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person [DAVID HOLLAND – Willis] who is putting in FOI requests for all emails Keith and Tim have written and received re Ch 6 of AR4. We think we’ve found a way around this.

Earlier Jones had written this:

Mike,
Â…
Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two [climate skeptics] MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.

We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere to it !

Â….

Phil

That's how "science" advances, you know -- destroying information and records rather than sharing it with the world.

Even earlier than that, Jones had shown his "scientific" credentials, with this infamous email:

Subject: Re: WMO non respondo
Â… Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. Â…
Cheers Phil

Willis Eisenbach, the guy making all this trouble with his nitpicky demands to see data and methodology (as he is legally entitled to, as regards any taxpayer-funded enterprise), explains what is so egregiously wrong with this sort of thinking:

eople seem to be missing the real issue in the CRU emails. Gavin over at realclimate keeps distracting people by saying the issue is the scientists being nasty to each other, and what Trenberth said, and the Nature “trick”, and the like. Those are side trails. To me, the main issue is the frontal attack on the heart of science, which is transparency.

Science works by one person making a claim, and backing it up with the data and methods that they used to make the claim. Other scientists attack the work by (among other things) trying to replicate the first scientistÂ’s work. If they canÂ’t replicate it, it doesnÂ’t stand. So blocking the FOIA allowed Phil Jones to claim that his temperature record (HadCRUT3) was valid science.

This is not just trivial gamesmanship, this is central to the very idea of scientific inquiry. This is an attack on the heart of science, by keeping people who disagree with you from ever checking your work and seeing if your math is correct.

Indeed. But the media is blowing this off as if it's no big deal that "scientists" not only refuse to show their work, but in fact conspire illegally to frustrate legal and valid FOIA requests.

Thanks to JackStraw.

In Case You Missed It... Yesterday I linked CBSNews recap of the scandal. I failed to highlight something I thought was important: An intriguing theory about how the leak happened.

The two main theories are 1 hacker and 2 insider-whistleblower. The new theory is a variation on insider-whistleblower. Given that the file seems to contain a LOT of data, and doesn't have any personal emails in it, that suggests someone took a lot of time to include only pertinent emails.

The theory, then, is this: The file was in fact prepared in response to FOIA requests/demands. In a provisional way -- okay, guys, let's prepare a response to the requests, in case we actually have to disclose this stuff.

So a team went through and attempted to comply.

Now, what happens, per this theory, is this: The decision is made to not release the file, to continue the cover-up and illegal withholding of information.

At this point someone decides "The hell with that" -- perhaps this person was on the team assembling the file -- and releases it himself.

Makes a great deal of sense, I think. Particularly when you consider that crackers (hackers -- hackers like being called "crackers") generally boast of their work, and take credit (under their cracker-handle), and that wasn't done here.

Bonus: Climate "models" can so totally predict the future.

Which is, conveniently, unknowable.

You know what they can't predict? The past.

Which is unfortunately quite knowable, and so we can check their "predictions" against actual records.

They all fail. They all fail.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:48 AM | Comments (120)
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As usual, I'm on the lookout for new recipes to bring to my adopted-for-a-day Thanksgiving dinner with my friend's parents. Last year, the Anchoress and I -- as well as our readers -- mixed it up exchanging recipes.

We're at it again. This year she's sharing Mashed Turnips and Carrots. I'm suggesting something put in comments by our very own Angel Em last year that was YUMM-O:

PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE DIP

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons orange juice
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. cloves

Throw it in a bowl and stir. So easy even this moron can do it. Serve with gingersnaps for dipping during the game. I also like it with a spoon. Or fingers. It's just good, okay?

So what do you got? The Anchoress is always on the lookout for veggie recipes. I'm looking for more things to satisfy my sweet tooth.

As I wrote last year, this is most definitely an opportunity to flame your fellow commenters for having such poor taste as to actually consume the three-bean salad.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:30 AM | Comments (451)
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Ball-dippingly Good

It remains to be seen if lefty outrage about the troop escalation will persist, but it looks like it will, and burn hotter as time goes on. I was lurking around in the lefty sites this morning to see what the consensus was. Turns out there isn't one.

Do not click on this link. *
I've taken the time to condense the best bits for you, so there's really no need.

First, from the post:

This American Will Not Support Obama's Escalation into More War in Afghanistan. And I Am Not Alone.
--------------

As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, the great rationizing cometh.

There will be one hellova hullabaloo here of rationalizers when President Barack Obama tells the nation that he has decided to escalate even further into the Bush/Cheney failed folly. Eight years wasn't enough, I guess. I can already sense the keyboards clicking away with smug justifications for what is unjustifiable: the ramping up even more military warfare in Afghanistan.

It will now be Obama's War. It didn't have to be.

And I will find that rationalization sickening and disgusting.

Karzai's crooked and vile government does not merit the death of one single American boy or girl, man or woman to defend it. He's not only not worth one drop of their blood, he's not worth shit.

And now, with no further commentary, some DU reader responses to the above-referenced article below the drop. I've clipped out some unrelated or redundant comments, altered the formatting and bolded the headers in order to make the conversation easier to follow. more...

Posted by: LauraW at 08:14 AM | Comments (190)
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First, Rudy.

Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand may have a serious problem on her hands if Rudy Giuliani gets in next yearÂ’s race for the U.S. Senate in New York State.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state finds Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York City, leading Gillibrand by 13 points – 53% to 40%. Four percent (4%) like some other candidate, and just two percent (2%) are undecided.

News reports that Giuliani has ruled out a run for governor next year and is interested In the Senate race could turn GillibrandÂ’s bid to fill out the rest of Hillary ClintonÂ’s term from a close struggle to an uphill climb.

I still would like to see Giuliani run for Governor. I know that's a more up hill battle against Andrew Cuomo but he'd have a decent shot. That would free the Senate race up for former Governor George Pataki. Yeah, George isn't my ideal candidate either (well, the 1st term Pataki was ok) but I'd like to win both seats.

Rudy still hasn't announced and quite frankly I'm not sure he'll make the run. Consider that the '10 race is a special election to fill the last two years of Hillary's term, he'd have to run again in '12. I'm not sure Rudy wants to essentially spend the next 3 years campaigning almost non-stop.

The second story is an amusing tidbit.

Former Philadelphia Eagle Jon Runyan will challenge Rep. John Adler (D-N.J.), but first he will make a brief NFL comeback next year.

Runyan said late Tuesday that he has signed on for the rest of the season with the San Diego Chargers, but that the games will be his last. He said he will indeed pursue a run against Adler once the season is done.

While it will prevent him from getting an earlier start, Runyan's season should be over by early February at the latest. That will allow him nine months to run the race.

I can't really blame Runyan.

First, who wouldn't want to spend the next two or three months in San Diego as opposed to south Jersey?

Second, it's the NFL. If you are a football player, you go if they call.

Third, it's likely not that big of a deal. December is a dead time anyway and how far are the Chargers likely to get anyway? The publicity from this will likely out weigh a few months off the trail. Can you imagine the boost he'd get if they won the Super Bowl? Unless of course, they beat the Eagles. Then he's screwed.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:07 AM | Comments (62)
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"If I am occasionally a little overdressed, I make up for it by always being immensely overeducated."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:15 AM | Comments (318)
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