Interesting Items
by Alex Gimarc Monday March 18, 2013 Interesting Items 3/18 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Climategate 3.0 2. Military 3. ObamaCare 4. NEPA 5. Giffords 6. Bloomberg 1. Climategare 3.0. Mr. FOIA, the whistleblower who released the first couple batches of selected e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) over the last several years struck again last week, releasing the password to the archive of all e-mails obtained from the CRU. The first two batches of e-mails demonstrated quite clearly the collusion, junk science, bad science and taxpayer-funded fraud at the heart of the manmade global warming scam. They managed to derail attempts to sign treaties controlling carbon dioxide emissions and impose worldwide carbon taxes to fund the entire house of cards. With the second batch, the whistleblower also released an encrypted archive containing over 220,000 e-mails from the CRU. Dumping this archive on the general public while retaining the decryption key was really quite smart, as he did not have to maintain storage and protection of the archive. Last week he released the key to a number of skeptic web sites and the owners have been going through the e-mails, removing e-mails of a personal nature. Anthony Watts’ Watts Up With That has already posted a few e-mails demonstrating the interaction between Hockey Stick fraudster Michael Mann and other scientists. Jo Nova has also been quite good on this also. I will link to WUWT at the end of this item. The actions of Mr. FOIA (so named because he released e-mails requested via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests but denied by the fraudsters in charge of the CRU) helped head off adoption of treaties and taxes to control manmade global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions. This entire effort has been mostly taxpayer funded, with grant and study money going to scientists willing to produce results in agreement with the goals of the grant writers. It has also ignored completely what has been going on in the real world, with no increase in global temperatures for over 16 years. Over that period of time, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to increase. When the connection between temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is broken, then the theory of manmade global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions is simply wrong and ought to be discarded. Why is this important? It is important because the climate treaties and the carbon taxes required by them were the tools of the one world government types backing Obama and his team of Chicago goons. The actions of Mr. FOIA along with a period of quiet sun has hopefully made it all but impossible to levy such a tax. It demonstrates that one (hu)man can indeed change the world – this time for the better by bringing the truth to light of day. He (or she) is owed a debt of gratitude from all of us. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/13/climategate-3-0-has-occurred-the-password-has-been-released/ 2. Military. Last week’s item on the Obama administration essentially shutting down TRICARE referrals for families of military members struck a chord with a few readers. This was not the only bit of ugliness out of the Obama DoD. The other has the Army and Marine Corps suspending tuition assistance for military members due to the sequester. One of the required things for advancement in the military is education, with Masters Degrees being important for the officer corps and Associates and Bachelors’ degrees being required for the enlisted. A bunch of people participate on their spare time, after hours, on and off post. Years ago under the GI Bill, there was no requirement to pay the money back via an extension of time in service. The program has gone a number of changes over the years and I am not familiar with its precise requirements these days. Be that as it may, the Army and Marines have suspended all tuition assistance for active duty members, meaning that all people currently in degree programs are stopped cold. They can complete current courses but cannot sign up for new ones. Note that this was part of the contractual obligation of agreeing to serve in the active duty, but those obligations do not appear to matter much to the Obamaoids or their political appointees in the Pentagon. This is as low and petty of an action that you could imagine and will do little to either save money or make the military more effective. OTOH, it will further undermine good order and discipline, which is a positive outcome for this WH. 3. ObamaCare. Two more little surprises out of ObamaCare last week. The first was concern about how the FDA will implement ObamaCare requirements for all foods and foodstuffs sold nationwide to include labeling somewhere that gives a calorie count. This is one of those provisions supported by large restaurant chains, as it gives them a competitive advantage. It is opposed by everyone else, as no small business, convenience store or grocery store has the manpower available to do such a thing. But this requirement does indeed demonstrate nicely the nanny state worldview of the democrats who shoved this awful piece of legislation down our throats. The second little surprise out of ObamaCare is the discovery that the 2.3% excise tax on all sales of medical equipment also applies to veterinarians, significantly increasing their costs and damaging care given to pets. This entire episode demonstrates once again the malfeasance of the democrats who passed this and the state run media that has know this all along and failed to report on it. This is what happens when you no longer have freedom of the press, when the media gets into bed with the politicians that they help elect and cover for. 4. NEPA. The Obama administration announced last week that it was going to require all federal agencies to require an impact statement considering how any approved project will impact manmade global warming before approving the project. This change in approach will add year and an untold amount of money to all new projects. Additionally, such a bogus requirement will allow the Obama administration to approve the Keystone Pipeline on one hand while allowing their allies in the radical environmental community inside and out of government to easily shut it down via review of environmental impact statements. The same logic can also be applied to the permitting process, refusing a federal permit to literally anything that the feds or their allies in the radical environmental community deem unfriendly. This is a terrible precedent used by a lawless administration against any hope for a future of energy abundance. Bloomberg story can be found here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/ 2013-03-15/obama-will-use- nixon-era-law-to-fight- climate-change.html 5. Giffords. Mark Kelly, former astronaut, newly minted anti-gun jihadi, and husband of former congress critter Gabby Giffords, is the proud owner of a new .45 caliber handgun and a used AR-15. Breitbart discovered the story and was about to break it nationally forcing Kelly to start making the rounds of the talk shows denying he purchased the assault weapon he is leading the effort to ban for his own use. After telling a number of different versions of his story, Kelly finally chose one in which he claimed to purchase the weapon to demonstrate how easy it was to buy and now intends to give it to the cops afterwards, which may be an illegal transfer of a firearm depending precisely how the law is written n Arizona. This is yet another demonstration that the laws today are just for the Little People, those of us who are not in full throated support of the leftist mob currently in charge. And the media aides and abets their every action as long as they are on the right side of each particular issue. 6. Bloomberg. Loathsome Nanny State Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R, NYC), with the wave of his august hand, levied a restriction on big gulp drinks sold in NYC. It banned a bunch of sales of sodas over 16 ounces. Bloomberg’s excuse was to fight obesity. Note that a myriad of large drinks were exempt from the ban. Local retailers took him to court charging that the ban did not go through the legislative process, being passed by the NYC city council. A state judge agreed with the retailers and tossed out the ban. The opinion noted that Bloomberg was arbitrary and capricious in writing and implementing the ban. Bloomberg huffed and puffed for a few days until stopping on his next personal health intervention initiative. He is now demanding all retailers that sell cigarettes now hide the product from the customers so that they cannot see it any more. This is intended to cut down smoking. Bloomberg is a perfect example of C. S. Lewis observation in “God in the Dock” (1948) that: “Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. Note: Interesting Items can be found at the following locations: Our Home Page http://interestingitems.org/ Archives can be found at http://home.gci.net/~agimarc Anchorage Daily Planet http://www.anchoragedailyplanet.com/ MatSu Valley News http://matsuvalleynews.blogspot.com/ Subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/ Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/ When replying to this message, plz cc: [email protected] to assure prompt reply. 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