EURObama Chose Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair 'Lightweight Joe' to Push 'Green' UN Treaties Like the UNCLOS & Kyoto Protocol

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) may soon be debated, once again, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, most likely sometime during 2009. Although last October 2007, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), chaired by Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, had voted 17-4 to submit the UNCLOS to a floor vote for ratification, the SFRC failed to satisfy many Americans’ demands to convene full, impartial and transparent open public hearings.


See Ken Timmerman, Senate Refuses Debate on Controversial Treaty, Newsmax.com (Sept. 27, 2007) at: http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/Sea_treaty/2007/09/26/36021.html . "Officially known as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, opponents are referring to it more simply as the Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST. What’s got them most riled up is the fact that neither the Bush White House, nor the Treaty’s supporters in the United States Senate, appear willing to have a forthright, honest, and full debate. 'They’re trying to ram this thing through in the dead of night,' said former Reagan administration Pentagon official Frank Gaffney, who now heads the conservative Center for Security Policy. On Thursday, the Senate Foreign Relationship Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, will hold its first hearing on the controversial Treaty. A bevy of senior Bush administration officials will all testify in favor of the Treaty. But not a single voice in opposition will be heard. 'Biden brushed us off with a form letter,' says Cliff Kincaid, an anti-United Nations activist who has teamed together with Gaffney and other conservatives into an ad hoc coalition to oppose the treaty. Thursday’s hearing 'is just a stunt by Biden to get mileage for his presidential campaign,' he told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. “And the Bush administration is being dragged along for the show.”


Indeed, what actually transpired following such 'pushback' were perfunctory UNCLOS ratification hearings, with administration officials and treaty proponents dominating much of the ‘air time’ and their obscurantist testimonies receiving the most minimal of cross-examinations. In addition, none of the other committees possessing oversight jurisdiction, either in the Senate or the House of Representatives, called for or conducted their own such investigations. See Colby Itkowitz, Senate Panel Approves Law of the Sea Treaty, CQ TODAY – FOREIGN POLICY (Oct. 31, 2007), ITSSD Journal on the UN Law of the Sea Convention at: http://itssdjournalunclos-lost.blogspot.com/2008/01/senate-panel-approves-law-of-sea-treaty.html . "'Do we join a treaty that establishes a framework to advance the rule of law on the oceans?” Chairman Joseph R. Biden, Jr., D-Del., asked. “Or do we remain on the outside, to the detriment of our national interests?' The Bush administration strongly supports Senate passage of the treaty. Biden said the president told him it was one of his foremost foreign policy priorities. The treaty also has the backing of the U.S. military, intelligence agencies and business and environmental groups."


Due to Americans' dissatisfaction with the SFRC's (and Senator Biden's) lackluster performance, the Senate Majority has since been unable to secure enough votes to ensure the treaty’s ratification. Consequently, the U.S. UNCLOS ratification process remains, at least for the time being, frozen in limbo.


Arguably, had the Congress undertaken a due diligence review befitting its constitutional obligation to provide all Americans with due process of law, it would have been able to discover the treaty’s numerous environmental regulatory, enforcement and revenue-raising provisions pursuant to which new imposts could adversely affect the general public. Given the sheer length of the UNCLOS (over 200 pages) and the multiple subject matters it covers, (and thus the resulting complexity), reasonable citizens are therefore left to wonder whether ‘wisdom’ is served at this time and place and by this Congress, without considering the true amount of work that would be required to thoroughly vet what is perhaps the largest environmental regulatory treaty in the world.


Senator and now Democratic Candidate for Vice President Joe Biden supports greater U.S. participation in United Nations multilateral environmental treaties that would impose legal obligations on the United States government to incorporate European Union-style rules (e.g., the PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE) that are economically costly and nonscience-based, into federal legislation and administrative agency regulations to which ALL American businesses and consumers would be subject. As noted on the Biden for President/Vice President website (See Delware's Joe Biden, at: http://www.joebiden.com/home.php/issues/display/environmental_protection/)

"Joe Biden’s Plan For Passing On A Cleaner, Greener World To Our Children Focus on Climate Change" - "Joe Biden is continuing his strong environmental record by leading the effort to pass the most aggressive bill in the Senate to reverse global warming -- the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act. The Act would limit greenhouse gas emissions and help avert the major problems warming of our planet could cause – such as altering growing seasons; redistributing natural resources; and lifting sea levels. Lead the World Forward - Global warming requires a global solution. Joe Biden believes the US must take a leadership role in international climate treaty negotiations, and make it a top priority. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he wrote a bipartisan resolution directing the President to return to international negotiations and reclaim a leadership role in the fight against global warming. If we don’t engage countries like China – which is building one new coal-fired power plant a week – we will not solve the global warming crisis."

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http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=213&sid=1465340


Choice of Biden as VP Candidate Praised Overseas


By Arthur Max


Associated Press


August 23, 2008


ACCRA, Ghana (AP) - From confronting Russia to dealing with climate change, Barak Obama's selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential candidate Saturday was seen abroad as adding weight and depth to the foreign policy of a potential Obama administration.


European analysts said the crisis in the Caucasus provided an appropriate backdrop to Biden's nomination.


In Accra, experts attending a U.N. climate change convention said Obama was sending a strong signal of change on what many see as a foreign policy debacle by the outgoing Bush administration regarding the battle against global warming.


"Biden owes his selection to (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin," said French political analyst Dominique Moisi. "Russia's invasion of Georgia reinforced the American worry about international tensions." The choice of the foreign affairs veteran was intended to reassure the electorate concerned about Obama's lack of credentials, Moisi said.


In Britain, the North America editor for the British Broadcasting Corp., Justin Webb, said Biden was "Vladimir Putin's contribution to American politics - he is a necessary antidote to the Obama lack of worldly wisdom, which before Georgia was a bit academic to most Americans."


Webb said Republican presidential candidate John McCain had acquitted himself well during the Russian invasion of Georgia this month. McCain "took the 3 a.m. call. Obama needs a pal who can do the same," Webb wrote in his blog.


In Germany, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats, Eckart von Klaeden, said Biden was "an exceptionally good decision, which shows how Obama is trying to organize all elements of the Democratic party behind him."


Biden's nomination created a buzz at the U.N. conference in Accra, where delegates from 160 countries were working on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty regulating carbon emissions renounced by President Bush shortly after taking office in 2000.


The choice of Biden "is a good signal for these talks," said Angela Anderson, director of the Global Warming Campaign for the PEW environmental group. "I'm thrilled."


Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, drafted climate change legislation as long as 20 years ago, and is an aggressive supporter of domestic and international efforts to rein in emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases.


"The easiest and fastest way to demonstrate a change of foreign policy would be on climate change," said David Doniger, of the Natural Resources Defense Council.


Biden and the ranking Republican on the committee, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, both have sent top congressional staff to the latest series of climate negotiations. The aides, James Greene and Mark Helmke, are to report on the talks to the committee at the end of the year and make recommendations for the next administration.


"This treaty is going to be so complex that the Senate could not give its advice and consent" without a thorough briefing, Helmke, Lugar's aide, said on the conference sidelines.

Helmke said the president-elect, whether Obama or McCain, may send a high-level representative to the next round of talks in December, which takes place in Poland just a few weeks after the U.S. election and seven weeks before the inauguration.

Greene, Biden's aide, declined to comment on the day of his boss's nomination.


But Helmke said it was possible that Biden could take a leading role in the negotiations next year, matching the task of former Vice President Al Gore in capping the Kyoto negotiations a decade ago.
___
AP correspondents Melissa Eddy in Berlin, Jamey Keaten in Paris and Raphael G. Satter in Paris contributed to this report.

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EUROBAMA'S SOUND JUDGMENT & BOLSTERED INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS/FOREIGN POLICY CREDENTIALS...????

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e0b42753-0d7e-4be0-9b6b-d4a626e8d4e9


That's the Ticket! - Why loquacious Delaware Senator Joe Biden is a Terrific Vice-presidential Pick for Barack Obama


by Jonathan Cohn


The New Republic


Post Date Saturday, August 23, 2008


It's a great pick! He connects with blue-collar voters and reassures voters worried about Barack Obama's foreign policy inexperience.

It's a lousy pick! He's prone to gaffes and, as a senior member of the Senate, steps on the message of change.

In the next few days, pundits will be obsessing over the political impact of putting Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket. But the more important questions are the more tangible ones. Is Biden qualified to serve as an advisor to the president and, in an emergency, his stand-in?
What does this selection tells us about the way Obama makes decisions?

[THIS SHOWS HOW TRULY HYPOCRITICAL AND DEVOID OF GOOD JUDGMENT. BY RELYING ON 'LIGHTWEIGHT JOE' TO BOLSTER HIS OWN 'LIGHTWEIGHT' CREDENTIALS, EUROBAMA ONLY MAKES HIMSELF, AND POTENTIALLY THE UNITED STATES, MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO NUANCED AND WELL-CONSIDERED & STRATEGIZED EURO-INFLUENCES, LET ALONE TO THE PLOTTINGS OF OTHER FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS. ALSO, WE CAN SEE EUROBAMA'S FLAWED JUDGMENT IN HIS RELIANCE ON HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE STATEMENTS PREVIOUSLY MADE BY SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID.]


[EUROBAMA WAS RECENTLY QUOTED DURING THE SADDLEBACK CHURCH PUBLIC FORUM THAT TOOK PLACE IN LAKE FOREST, CALIFORNIA, AS CRITICIZING THE SELECTION OF CLARENCE THOMAS AS U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE. WHEN ASKED WHICH SUPREME COURT JUSTICES HE WOULD NOT HAVE NOMINATED, EUROBAMA ANSWERED: "I WOULD NOT HAVE NOMINATED CLARENCE THOMAS. I DON'T THINK THAT HE...WAS A STRONG ENOUGH JURIST OR LEGAL THINKER AT THE TIME FOR THAT ELEVATION. SETTING ASIDE THE FACT THAT I PROFOUNDLY DISAGREE WITH HIS INTERPRETATION OF A LOT OF THE CONSTITUTION." See Jim Meyers, Obama: Clarence Thomas Unfit for Supreme Court, Jacksonville Forum (Aug. 18, 2008) at: http://www.topix.com/forum/city/jacksonville-fl/TI5L03OUTI8GR968U . ]


[HOWEVER, ACCORDING TO JUSTICE THOMAS' FORMER LAW CLERK WENDY E. LONG, CURRENTLY COUNSEL TO THE JUDICIAL CONFIRMATION NETWORK, "OBAMA STARTED TO SAY THAT JUSTICE THOMAS DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH 'EXPERIENCE' FOR THE SUPREME COURT. IN MID-SENTENCE, WHEN OBAMA REALIZED THAT HE HIMSELF HAS FAR LESS EXPERIENCE FOR THE PRESIDENCY THAN JUSTICE THOMAS HAD FOR THE COURT IN 1991, HE SHIFTED AND SAID JUSTICE THOMAS 'WAS NOT A STRONG ENOUGH JURIST OR LEGAL THINKER AT THE TIME"...THIS IS ALL REMINISCENT OF (SENATE MAJORITY LEADER) HARRY REID'S COMMENT SEVERAL YEARS AGO THAT JUSTICE THOMAS WAS 'AN EMBARRASSMENT TO THE COURT' AND THIS HIS OPINIONS 'WERE POORLY WRITTEN'. REID WAS EXPOSED AS THE IGNORAMUS THEN, AND THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS ASKED HIM TO STOP USING 'STEREOTYPES AND CARICATURES'"...REID IS AMONG SEVERAL CRITICS WHO HAVE CALLED THOMAS' WRITTEN OPINIONS 'LIGHTWEIGHT' AND SUGGESTED THAT HE WANTS TO ABANDON THE PRINCIPLE OF 'STARE DECISIS' - STANDING BY PRECEDENT - AND REINVENT THE WHEEL WITH EVERY CASE." “'REASONABLE SUPREME COURT OBSERVERS OF ALL POLITICAL STRIPES, WHO DO NOT NECESSARILY AGREE WITH JUSTICE THOMAS' JURISPRUDENCE, CONSIDER HIS WORK TO BE SCHOLARLY AND OF TOP QUALITY. AND YET SENATOR OBAMA IS, SADLY, UNABLE TO ACKNOWLEDGE EVEN THAT MUCH ABOUT AN INTELLIGENT, WONDERFUL AND KIND MAND WHO BROKE RACIAL BARRIERS TO RISE TO THE VERY TOP OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION', SAID HELGI WALKER, A FORMER ASSOCIATE COUNSEL TO PRESIDENT BUSH AND FORMER LAW CLER FOR THOMAS." See: Conservatives Slam Obama’s Answer About Supreme Court Justices at Saddleback Forum, FOXNews.com (Aug. 18, 2008) at: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/18/conservatives-slam-obamas-answer-about-supreme-court-justices-at-saddleback-forum/ ].


[DESPITE ALL OF THIS, EUROBAMA NOMINATES U.S. DELAWARE SENATOR JOE BIDEN AS HIS VICE PRESIDENT, WHOM BOTH DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS HAVE LONG REFERRED TO AS AN 'INTELLECTUAL LIGHTWEIGHT'. EVEN THE TRANSATLANTIC BLOGOSPHERE IS WELL ACQUAINTED WITH 'LIGHTWEIGHT JOE'S' FALLIBILITIES: "HE'S THE SORT OF MAN I'VE MET MANY A TIE IN IRISH PUBS. BIDEN WIL TELL YOU, AT SOME LENGTH FOR SURE, ALL ABOUT HIS PLANS FOR THE FUTURE, HOW HE'S ON THE CUSP OF GREATNESS JUST WAITING FOR THAT LAST PIECE TO FALL NEATLY INTO PLACE. THE FACT THAT - STUBBORNLY - IT HAS NEVER YET DONE SO DETERS HIM NOT A BIT...YOU CAN PICTURE HIM PROPPING UP ONE END OF THE BAR FOR THIRTY YEARS; LONG ENOUGH FOR ALL TO BE FORGIVEN, ALL ANCIENT BATTLES AND BLUNDERS FORGOTTEN AS WE GROW OLDER, MORE CHARITABLE, MORE SENTIMENTAL. BIDEN'S THE SORT OF FELLOW WHO'LL MAKE A WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENT ABOUT YOUR WIFE. TO YOUR FACE. ON YOUR WEDDING DAY. BUT HE'LL DO SO IN SUCH A GUILELESS FASHION FREE FROM ANY HINT OF MALICE THAT, DASH IT AND ALMOST HALF DESPITE YOURSELF, YOU FORGIVE THE SILLY OLD FOOL. HE WAS, YOU REALIZE, PROBABLY TRYING TO AY SOMETHING COMPLEMENTARY. HECK, EVEN HIS 1988 DISGRACE WAS SO PREPOSTEROUS - PLAGIARISING NEIL BLEEDIN' KINNOCK! - THAT IT SEEMS UTTERLY ARTLESS. SO BIZARRE THERE HAD TO BE AN INNOCENT, BRAIN-FRYING EXPLANATING FOR IT. DESPITE ALL THOSE YEARS IN WASHINGTON, THERE'S AN ENDEARING CHILD-LIKE QUALITY TO BIDEN. OR, TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY, OBSERVING BIDEN IN FULL FLOW IS A GLORIOUS SIGHT; IT'S LIKE WATCHING A LABRADOR BOUND AFTER A BOUNCING BALL EVEN THOUGH, BEING A PUPPY, IT DOESN'T QUITE HAVE THE CO-ORDINATION TO GRAB THE BALL CLEANLY. INSTEAD THERE'S A FRENZY OF YELPING DELIGHT AS THE AS THE BALL CARROMS AROUND THE YARD, ALWAYS TANTALISINGLY JUST OUT OF REACH..." See Megan McArdle, A Man You Don't Meet Every Day, The Atlantic.com (Aug. 24, 2008) at: http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/08/a_man_you_dont_meet_every_day.php ].

The answer to the first question is unambiguously "yes." Start with the resume: Biden first came to the Senate in 1973, after a brief career in local government. He rose through ranks, eventually becoming chairman of the judiciary committee, a position he occupied from 1987 through 1995. In 1997, he became ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations a Committee, which he chairs today. As a result of this experience, Biden can boast of real policy expertise--and genuine accomplishments. [??] Chief among them are the Violence Against Women's Act, which he sponsored and eventually shepherded to passage as part of the 1994 crime bill, and American intervention in the Balkans, for which he was an early and influential advocate.

Biden's history of public service has its blemishes, too. After masterminding the defeat of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in 1987, he famously botched the hearings for Clarence Thomas, presiding over a spectacle that somehow managed both to confirm a deeply conservative judge while making himself, and many liberals, seem insensitive to the concerns of women. Biden also voted for the Iraq War. He did so more reluctantly than some other Democrats, openly decrying President Bush's doctrine of preemption and promoting (with Republican Senator Richard Lugar) a measure that would have authorized war only to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. But when that effort failed, Biden voted for the final, broader resolution--thereby breaking with more prescient colleagues like Carl Levin and Jack Reed, who thought Bush hadn't made the case for war. Most recently, Biden supported the strongly anti-consumer 2005 bankruptcy law, although that was presumably a typical act of local political boosterism. (Delaware is home to the credit card industry.)

For many Washington insiders, it's Biden's words--not his votes--that deserve scrutiny. His promising 1988 presidential bid ended quickly following revelations he'd used quotes from other famous politicians, without attribution, and that he had a habit of exaggerating his past exploits. [!!] And while those transgressions are old news, might a general election campaign bring forth new ones? It's a legitimate worry. The Obama campaign doesn't need those sorts of distractions--not now and not for the next four years, should the Democrats win in November.


And yet as politically unfortunate as those instances have been, the more important question is what they reveal about Biden's character and leadership qualities. I have no special reporting insights here, but the consensus that emerges from past writings about him--including the descriptions in Battle for Justice, Ethan Bronner's account of the Bork hearings--is that Biden suffered from an acute case of intellectual insecurity. The boasts, in this view, reflected Biden's constant fear that he would be perceived as a lightweight, either because of his (then) youth or lack of top intellectual credentials. (He graduated from the University of Delaware and, later, Syracuse Law School.) Biden is older now. Washington considers him, legitimately, an elder statesman. One can imagine--or at least hope--that the insecurity has waned over time.


And even if it hasn't, it's important to put this character flaw in context. Biden may have stretched the truth about his own accomplishments, but that's a far lesser sin--at least in my book--than calculating every move based on political expediency or using high office to gain personal wealth. And there's no sign that Biden has ever been prone to these sorts of problems. On the contrary, his political history suggests real courage on behalf of important, but controversial, causes. Biden had to fight for both VAWA and the Balkans intervention. As for using office to get rich, Biden's record looks to be squeaky clean. Based on public disclosure forms, he is the least wealthy member of the U.S. Senate. It's a reflection of his working-class roots--and the everyman sensibility that remains one of his most endearing characteristics. But it's also a tribute to Biden's virtue. Such a long tenure in office, surely, has presented ample opportunities for graft and shady dealings.


So Biden is not just qualified for the job. He is very qualified for the job. He can help Obama govern; should the unthinkable happen, he would make a capable and trustworthy commander-in-chief himself. But what does this tell us about Obama and how he makes decisions?


Political considerations surely played a major role in Obama's thinking. If you believe what you read, he had higher regard for--and a closer relationship with--several other contenders, including Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, and Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed. But voters might have rejected a ticket with Kaine or Sebelius, concluding it lacked sufficient experience in national and international politics. Reed, an Army veteran and highly respected lawmaker, didn't have that problem. But he's notoriously dull.


But it's unlikely politics were Obama primary motivation. If they had been, Obama might well have selected Evan Bayh, whose presence on the ticket would have put Indiana into play and--as a result--reshaped the electoral map. (Among other things, it would have drained McCain's financing, by forcing him to advertise in the expensive Chicago television market.) But Bayh, although a perfectly respectable senator, is not exactly a heavyweight. He claims no policy area as expertise; he has no major law or initiative that he can claim as an accomplishment. There's nothing terribly wrong with Bayh but there's nothing terribly right with him, either. It's been said that Bayh was the "safe" candidate--and, as a political matter, that's true. But given his less than sterling record, putting him a heartbeat away from the presidency would have actually been a little risky.


Biden's choice presents real risks for Obama, too--and not just political. Biden can be difficult. He speaks his mind, even when he has nothing nice to say. But if that sometimes makes conversations uncomfortable, it also makes them valuable. Obama has always said he didn't want a "yes" man--that he wanted a vice president who would challenge him intellectually and promote a vigorous debate about policy decisions. It's precisely the sort of environment that the current White House lacks. By choosing Biden, Obama tells us he's serious about that change.


One other, perhaps less appreciated, virtue of the Biden choice is what it says about Obama philosophically. Biden can be counted upon to play the role of house dissenter and skeptic. But he does so as somebody whose fealty to the basic values of the Democratic Party is not in doubt. On a wide range of issues, from economics to the courts to national security, Biden has compiled a record that would please the majority of progressives. His rating from Americans for Democratic Action is a perfect 100, just like Obama's. He scores well among other liberal groups, too.


Conservatives will blast this record, just as surely as liberals will (or should) celebrate it. But one of the virtues of having Biden as the vice presidential nominee is that he won't take those kinds of attacks lightly. He'll fight back. He'll remind people, rightly, that being a liberal Democrat means raising the minimum wage, making sure everybody has affordable health care, providing strong public schools, and protecting human rights. Then, he'll ask why conservative Republicans don't want the same things. That's exactly the kind of political debate this country needs. By picking Biden as a running mate, Obama has signaled that he welcomes this argument--and intends, finally, to win it.


Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor at The New Republic and the author of Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis--And the People Who Paid the Price.

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http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5D61139F930A25752C0A96E948260

Biden Gives Kinnock Copy of His Speeches


REUTERS


Published: January 13, 1988


LEAD: Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., meeting Neil Kinnock for the first time, today presented the Labor Party leader with a bound copy of the Senator's speeches and told reporters: ''I told him he was welcome to use them whenever he liked, with or without attribution.''


[NOW, IS THIS AN EXAMPLE OF THE GOOD JUDGMENT AND INTELLECTUAL HEFT & HONESTY TO WHICH THE NEW EUROBAMA PRESIDENTIAL TICKET ASPIRES?]


[DID NOT 'LIGHTWEIGHT JOE' UNDERSTAND HOW HE WOULD BE PERCEIVED BY NEIL KINNOCK, LET ALONE BY THE PRESS AND THE PUBLIC, AFTER HE PRESENTED THE UK LABOR PARTY LEADER WITH A COPY OF HIS SPEECHES CONTAINING THE PLAGIARIZED PASSAGES???]

[BUT THEN, AGAIN, WASN'T EUROBAMA HIMSELF ACCUSED OF PLAGIARISM?? See Alex Spillius, Hillary Clinton Accuses Obama of Plagiarism, UK Telegraph (Feb. 26, 2008) at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1579074/Hillary-Clinton-accuses-Obama-of-plagiarism.html . "[Obama]...has been forced into the unwelcome distraction of fighting off charges from Mrs Clinton's camp that he lacks credibility after he used a short passage from a speech by his friend Deval Patrick, the Governor of Massachusetts, nearly verbatim and without attribution. Howard Wolfson, Mrs Clinton's chief spokesman, said: "Senator Obama's campaign is largely premised on the strength of his rhetoric and his promises, because he doesn't have a long record in public life. When the origin of his oratory is called into question, it raises questions about his overall candidacy." See also, Clinton Camp Accuses Obama Of Plagiarism, US News & World Reports Political Bulletin (Feb. 19, 2008) at: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_080219.htm . "The Financial Times reports, 'In an attack designed to remind people of Joe Biden's withdrawal from the 1988 presidential campaign after his uncredited use of passages from Neil Kinnock, leader of the Labour party opposition in the UK, the Clinton campaign said it raised 'fundamental questions' about the integrity of Mr Obama's campaign.' The Los Angeles Times reports that Clinton, 'in response to a question from reporters on her campaign plane, added her voice to her staff's criticism of Obama. 'If your whole candidacy is about words, they should be your own words,' she said. 'That's what I think.'"].

[See Edward Luce, Clinton in a War Over Words With Obama, Financial Times (Feb. 18, 2008) at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e7744382-de4e-11dc-9de3-0000779fd2ac.html . "On Monday the Obama camp admitted that Mr Obama had used the same language as Mr Patrick in a speech in Wisconsin on Saturday in a passage designed to rebut the allegation that his campaign consisted of poetic phrases but little else. They said Mr Patrick and Mr Obama were friends who often “riffed off each other’s speeches”. 'Don’t tell me words don’t matter,' Mr Obama said in the passage borrowed from Mr Patrick. 'I have a dream – just words? We hold these truths to be self-evident – just words? We have nothing to fear but fear itself – just words?'”].

Mr. Biden dropped out of the Democratic Presidential race last September after admitting that he had used speeches by Mr. Kinnock and other politicians without attribution, and after published reports that he had plagiarized while in law school.


The Delaware Democrat, who met Mr. Kinnock at the House of Commons, said the Welsh politician ''did not give me any more ideas for speeches, nor I him.''


Mr. Biden, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was on a two-day visit of Britain as part of a tour to consult allies on the treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union banning intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

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http://bigheaddc.com/2008/02/18/katrina-vanden-heuvel-plagiarism-not-an-issue/

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Plagiarism Not An Issue

Bighead DC

Feb. 18, 2008

Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation magazine, told Chris Matthews today on Hardball that Sen. Barack Obama’s plagiarism scandal should not have been covered on the program because, she feels, it doesn’t matter to the common person. An incredulous Matthews responded that she should ask Sen. Joe Biden whether these kind of issues matter — a reference to Biden being forced to quit his bid for the presidency in 1987 after he plagiarised a speech. Pat Buchanan, a guest on the show, said that he felt this was a “bad day” for Obama, and that his character will likely be called into question more often now in the campaign.

See also Hardball: Plagiarism or Not?, Hardball at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAMhjDbrtyg

[WHAT KIND OF EXAMPLE DOES THIS PROVIDE FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRY GOVERNMENTS AND INDUSTRIES THAT SYSTEMATICALLY STEAL U.S. COPYRIGHTS, PATENTS and TRADESECRETS??? THESE POLITICIANS AND COMMENTATORS SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES, ESPECIALLY UNINFORMED AND ARROGANT KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL. DEAR MS. VANDEN HEUVEL, PLAGIARISM, LIKE COPYRIGHT and PATENT INFRINGEMENT, ARE REAL ISSUES THAT MATTER TO COMMON PEOPLE WHO OWN BUSINESSES, and INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ASSETS!! See: ITSSD Journal on Intellectual Property Rights, at: http://itssdinternationaliprights.blogspot.com/ ].

The US Military's 'Soft Green Power' Doctrine Is European-Centric To the Core

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1203652526272450.xml&coll=7

Military's strategists promote 'soft power'


Portland visit - Navy, Marines and Coast Guard to stress war prevention, admirals say


Friday, February 22, 2008


By RICHARD READ


The Oregonian


U.S. military leaders in Portland on Thursday said a new strategy stressing international cooperation was not intended as a departure from Bush administration policies that have emphasized a troop surge.


Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard officers said they would emphasize war prevention, humanitarian assistance and international cooperation.


"Although our forces can surge when necessary to respond to crises, trust and cooperation cannot be surged," says a summary of their new policy, entitled "A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower."


Despite the new directions and the reference to a surge -- a term associated most recently with President Bush for Iraq tactics -- the strategy is not a jab at the administration, Navy Vice Adm. John Morgan Jr. said during an interview.


[THIS IS NOT CERTAIN. HOWEVER, WHAT IS CERTAIN, IS THAT THE 'NEW' POLICY IS ACTUALLY AN 'OLD' POLICY RECYCLED FROM THE CLINTON-GORE ADMINISTRATIONS. THAT POLICY, WHICH IS FORMERLY KNOWN AS 'MILITARY OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR', FOCUSED ON FOSTERING INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW COOPERATION. DURING THE CLINTON ERA, U.S. MILITARY RESOURCES, INCLUDING THOSE OF THE U.S. NAVY, HAD BEEN SYSTEMATICALLY RE-ORIENTATED TOWARDS ENSURING MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP AS PART OF AN INTEGRATED AND 'REVISED' U.S. NATIONAL MILIATARY/POLITICAL STRATEGY. ARGUABLY, TO THE EXTENT THIS MODE OF THINKING CONTINUES TO BE REFLECTED IN TODAY'S RECYCLED THINKING, IT ARGUABLY IMPAIRS THE SOUND PROFESSIONAL JUDGMENT OF THE U.S. NAVY'S OFFICER CORPS (WHICH CURRENTLY SUPPORTS UNCLOS RATIFICATION), AND WILL CONTINUE TO INTERFERE WITH THE U.S. MARITIME SERVICES' PRIMARY ROLE OF PROJECTING AMERICAN POWER ABROAD IN ORDER TO PREVENT AND/OR TO RESOLVE INTERNATIONAL CONFLICTS AND TO ENSURE THE SECURITY OF THE AMERICAN HOMELAND. SEE: Myth & Realities # 2 Concerning UN Law of the Sea Treaty: U.S. Naval Freedom of Navigation and Avoidance of LOST Tribunal Jurisdiction, Despite Europe’s Aggressive Use of the Precautionary Principle? at fn#s 30-32, AT: http://itssdjournalunclos-lost.blogspot.com/2008/01/myth-realities-2-concerning-un-law-of.html .]


"I'm confident that we're in sync with this administration," said Morgan, citing approaches advocated by State Department officials. "We follow their lead."


[THE FACT THAT THE STATE DEPARTMENT ADVOCATES THIS POLICY IS REASON ALONE FOR CONCERN].


Military officials picked Portland as the first West Coast stop in a series of national "conversations." They invited community leaders to respond to the new strategy, which goes beyond traditional sea combat, in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and subsequent wars.


[THIS IS NOT LIKELY TRUE. THE REASON MILITARY OFFICIALS HAVE PICKED PORTLAND IS BECAUSE OF ITS ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP ROLE. PORTLAND OREGON HAS THE DUBIOUS DISTINCTION OF BEING ONLY ONE OF THREE MAJOR U.S. CITIES, ALL LOCATED ALONG THE WEST COAST, THAT HAVE ADOPTED THE EUROPE UNION'S HAZARD, NOT RISK-BASED PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AS MUNICIPAL LAW. THE OTHERS, NOT SURPRISINGLY, ARE SEATTLE, WA and SAN FRANCISCO, CA - THE HOME DISTRICT OF THE SPEAKER OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES].


About 200 members of the World Affairs Council of Oregon and other organizations attended the one-day event at a downtown hotel. Invitations were sent to more than 2,000 community leaders, academics and people interested in maritime issues, said Coast Guard Rear Adm. David Pekoske.


The strategy emphasizes the use of "soft power" in an approach that could appeal more to doves than hawks.


But defense analysts in Washington, D.C., agreed it would be a mistake to interpret the strategy, crafted before the current presidential campaign, as an attempt by the military to prepare for a potential Democratic administration.


Defense Department officials have recently elevated missions such as peacekeeping to a "purported par" with war-fighting, said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank.


"When they start building warships that hold food packets as conveniently as they hold missiles, I'll find the claim more compelling," O'Hanlon said, "at which point I'll also probably object to it, since militaries are first and foremost about combat."


What's especially significant about the strategy is that the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard are collaborating, instead of duplicating or even competing, said Stephen Pietropaoli, executive director of the Navy League of the United States, a nonprofit supporting the sea services.


Morgan, 57, participated in the first strikes on Afghanistan after 9/11 as battle-group commander aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, in charge of about 10,000 personnel. He said war prevention and international cooperation were the most significant new points in the strategy.


A University of Virginia economics graduate, Morgan said U.S. forces at sea secure the flow of commerce. "We can never take that for granted," said Morgan, noting Portland's heavy reliance on international trade.


Morgan received applause when he endorsed U.S. ratification of The Law of the Sea Treaty, which would govern ocean activities.

That stance appealed to Joella Werlin, a Portland personal historian and World Affairs Council member who attended Thursday's event.


"What an extraordinary experience in a democracy," Werlin said, "that the military is actually asking for public input." Richard Read: 503-294-5135; richread@aol.com. %%endby%%


©2008 The Oregonian

Scientists doubt climate change

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071221/NATION/844993096/1002


Washington Times


December 21, 2007


By S.A. Miller - More than 400 scientists challenge claims by former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations about the threat of man-made global warming, a new Senate minority report says.


The scientists — many of whom are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore for publicizing a climate crisis — cast doubt on the "scientific consensus" that man-made global warming imperils the planet.


"I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the IPCC number — entirely without merit," said Dutch atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes, one of the researchers quoted in the report by Republican staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.


"I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached," Mr. Tennekes said in the report.


Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the report debunks Mr. Gore's claim that the "debate is over."


"The endless claims of a 'consensus' about man-made global warming grow less-and-less credible every day," he said.


After a quick review of the report, Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said 25 or 30 of the scientists may have received funding from Exxon Mobil Corp.


Exxon Mobil spokesman Gantt H. Walton dismissed the accusation, saying the company is concerned about climate-change issues and does not pay scientists to bash global-warming theories.


"Recycling of that kind of discredited conspiracy theory is nothing more than a distraction from the real challenge facing society and the energy industry," he said. "And that challenge is how are we going to provide the energy needed to support economic and social development while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions."


The Republican report comes on the heels of Saturday's United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, where conferees adopted a plan to negotiate a new pact to create verifiable measurements to fight global warming in two years.


In the Senate report, environmental scientist David W. Schnare of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said he was skeptical because "conclusions about the cause of the apparent warming stand on the shoulders of incredibly uncertain data and models. ... As a policy matter, one has to be less willing to take extreme actions when data are highly uncertain."


The hundreds of others in the report — climatologists, oceanographers, geologists, glaciologists, physicists and paleoclimatologists — voice varying degrees of criticism of the popular global-warming theory. Their testimony challenges the idea that the climate-change debate is "settled" and runs counter to the claim that the number of skeptical scientists is dwindling.


The report's authors expect some of the scientists will recant their remarks under intense pressure from the public and from within professional circles to conform to the global-warming theory, a committee staffer said.


Several scientists in the report said many colleagues share their skepticism about man-made climate change but don't speak out publicly for fear of retribution, according to the report.


"Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media," atmospheric scientist Nathan Paldor, professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said in the report.


The IPCC has about 2,500 members.


HEATED DEBATE


The following are comments from some of the more than 400 scientists in a Republican report on global warming:


•"Even if the concentration of 'greenhouse gases' double, man would not perceive the temperature impact."

Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences


•"I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the [U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] number — entirely without merit. ... I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."

Atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes, former research director at the Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute


•"The hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The [greenhouse-gas] hypothesis does not do this. ... The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates."

David Wojick, expert reviewer for U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change


•"The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming."

Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo-Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil


•"There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried."

Anton Uriarte, a professor of physical geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain


Source: Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee

New Study Explodes Human-Global Warming Story

By Philip V. Brennan


Newsmax.com


10 December 2007


http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/global_warming/2007/12/10/55974.html


As much of the U.S. is being blasted by vicious ice storms, a blockbuster report published in a prestigious scientific journal insists that the evidence shows that climate warming is both natural and unstoppable and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant.


Writing in the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society, professor David H. Douglass (of the University of Rochester), professor John R. Christy (of the University of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson and professor S. Fred Singer (of the University of Virginia) report that observed patterns of temperature changes ("fingerprints") over the last 30 years disagree with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability.


The conclusion is that climate change is "unstoppable" and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.


According to Dr. Douglass:


"The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming."


One of his co-authors, Dr. John Christy, added:


"Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater.


"We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide."


And the third co-author, Dr. S. Fred Singer, said:


"The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals.


"The mechanism for producing such cyclical climate changes is still under discussion; but they are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on the earth's atmosphere.


"In turn, such cosmic rays are believed to influence cloudiness and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface- and thus the climate.


"Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless - but very costly."

Bali Bologna

How Green Was My Bali

The American Thinker


By Marc Sheppard,


December 2007


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/02/AR2007120201635.html


Planet saving green superheroes flew off to the climate carnival in Bali Monday last week boldly sensing a new sweltering wind at their backs.


And, while recent events certainly served to bolster their optimism, the folly of both their cause and - were they actually necessary - proposed solutions, would ultimately dash their dreams of a global UN-based Kingdom more red than green.


True, incoming Aussie Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had promised to ratify the Kyoto Protocol before his arrival at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). His predecessor, John Howard, declined to sign on to the international cap-and-trade scheme, joining the U.S as the only 2 developed nations not to do so. Rudd's capitulation was surely expected to put further pressure on the sole remaining holdout to do the same, or at least participate in the summit's objective of laying the groundwork for Kyoto's successor.


What's more, rumors were flying that a bi-partisan coalition of Congressmen might toughen the coercion by arriving at the meeting to announce a freshly Senate committee-passed Kyoto-friendly American cap-and-trade bill of their own. Such would be considered quite a boost to the conference as well, for, while it's George Bush the left reflexively blames, it was actually the Senate that unanimously rejected the previous accord back in 1997.


That Senate had the wisdom to recognize the plan's exclusion of developing nations as the ineffectual ploy and threat to the U.S economy it was then and remains now.


But as green-fevered thinkers saw it - with the U.S now isolated among developed nations, surely we'd accept mandatory emissions targets foregoing previous demands that China and India adopt them as well.


Besides, with left-leaning eco-maniacal Democrats controlling both Houses, how much longer would U.S insistence on a voluntary, market-based approach endure anyway?


Indeed, confidence was high that by the time U.N secretary general Ban Ki-moon arrived for anointment later in the week, his dream of a global green economy would be well on its way to reality.


The Onset of Offset Upsets


But offsetting the estimated 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide the 15,000 politicians, lobbyists, journalists, actors and other assorted Gore groupies from 190 nations and their private jets and SUV's will unleash on the resort island wouldn't be the only trouble in paradise.


In reality, planting 79 million CO2 hungry trees across Indonesia (which has been gutting its forests at a rate faster than any other country) while providing 200 mountain bikes and recycled paper to attendees are mere symbolic gestures which hardly mitigate all those carbon footprints in the Bali sand.


In fact, the entire "offset" concept underscores the futility of the entire UN agenda, which continues to push disproved cap-and-trade offset schemes. Mechanisms which have failed miserably in Europe, where Kyoto was ratified and adhered to - yet CO2 levels continued to rise, while voluntary market-based reduction initiatives have succeeded in the Kyoto-rogue US, where levels have instead ebbed.


And yet, ignoring these failures, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) worked feverishly to get the Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill out of committee in time to allow her to lead a Senate delegation to Bali this week with her new legislative victory firmly in hand.


On Wednesday, the Dem-controlled Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works doggedly defeated each and every rational amendment offered to protect the economy while still meeting their arbitrary Carbon goals.


Watching them work reminded me of just how many traits the majority in Congress share with the O.J jury - each being too ignorant of science to possibly understand its application to law.


Despite overwhelming evidence presented that the bill would spark runaway consumer energy costs, it passed with virtually every Republican amendment denied. Even a statement from top 5 electricity producer Duke Energy that their need to purchase between 44 and 57 percent of emissions allowances in 2012 would force them to increase rates by between 13 and 53 percent failed to sway the determined Boxer.


The bill, which would cap emissions and somehow reduce them by 60 percent by 2050 through an allocation system where companies buy, sell and trade pollution credits, was on its way to the Senate floor. Hearing the news, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer literally cheered.


But the bill will face extended debate - and a filibuster promised by committee ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla) - in the full Senate.


Besides, Harlan Watson, our senior climate negotiator at Bali dismissed any idea that policy might be impacted by the Boxer rebellion.


Indeed, the administration recognizes the UN's goal to exploit the research it first financed and then corrupted to effect a plan with no impact other than Third World-favoring global wealth redistribution. So it's a safe bet that despite the American left's ignorant meddling, as with most sequels, particularly those to an abysmal original, Kyoto II is destined to be a flop.


Trouble in Green Paradise


Arriving on the resort Island of Bali last Monday, Australian delegates pledged their country's immediate action on Kyoto. And for their sins, they received a standing ovation. But green hopes faded quickly as the clock ticked. A great divide still existed between the developed nations of the Northern Hemisphere and those developing in the South. And, while not quite Union versus Confederate in contrast, their differences
emerged equally insurmountable.


The north stood essentially unified in pressuring both China and India to jump aboard the mandatory cap wagon. After all, nearly 70% of China's electricity originates from coal-fired power plants, of which they are now building as many as 2 weekly. Add India's growing demands and any plan for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction without the involvement of both would be doomed to failure before it ever began.


Meanwhile, the south reiterated demands for continued cap exemption and insisted the north agree to share cutting-edge renewable-energy and future carbon sequestration technology at highly reduced costs. Of course, China's history of criminal disregard for copy and intellectual property rights (e.g. their shameless pirating of all media American) makes the latter highly unlikely.


Already disappointed greenies were handed another setback when a Japanese delegate's opening comments addressed a "market-based approach" to GHG reduction with no reference to mandatory targets:


"It is essential to move beyond the Kyoto Protocol to a new framework in which the entire world will meaningfully participate in actions leading to global reduction of emissions."


Naturally, representatives of both countries attested that Kyoto's host nation's sudden accord with the stance of the U.S was unrehearsed.


Nonetheless, attending environmental-cases, recalling America's threats (and Canada's nascent hints) to reject any post-Kyoto agreement lacking emissions cap obligations for all large emitting nations, nearly fainted.


Then, on the very day Boxer's committee approved Warner-Lieberman, something happened 10,000 miles away that might just cement the fate of the conference - Rudd backed away from his government's commitment to meet the proposed 2020 objectives. The Prime Minister tabled any discussions on mandatory targets until next year, when economist Ross Garnaut's report on the viability of emissions trading is due.


By Friday, revelers likely wished they could retract their standing O when Rudd's Trade Minister, Simon Crean, declared that any plan excluding strict caps for developing nations would be fruitless. Ouch.


All of this green dissent before even hearing from delegates of the red, white, and blue betrayed a conference in complete disarray. Not even this week's highly anticipated arrival of Green King Gore himself, his fist filled with silly internet petitions, is likely to breathe life into this corpse of a convention, or its likewise deceased post-Kyoto scam.


While Greenies Gab, Science Strides Forward


Without exception, everything discussed at UNFCC, indeed the very temporary greening of Bali itself, is predicated on the specious argument that greenhouse gases, and no other forces, might be driving global temperatures.


But the science on which the U.N's hysteria-engendered flock base their planet-saving plans is settled only in their minds and the reams of hyped reports from the IPCC, which they foolishly expect to dictate global climate policies.


Readers are all too aware of the endless tricks

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/mind_games_of_the_big_green_sc_1.html ,

deceptions

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/gores_deceptive_rolling_stone.html

outright lies

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/why_would_anyone_nasas_trust_c.html ,

and more tricks

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/06/manmade_global_warming_the_rea.html

used to divert attention from any driver not Carbon- (and, therefore, not industry-) related.


Those same readers are well aware that this author believes the factor most irresponsibly ignored by alarmists to be Solar, as I have opined many times, including here


http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/07/solar_deniers_attempt_to_eclip.html ,

here,


http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/06/seasons_of_the_global_warming.html ,

and here


http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/03/solar_global_warming_deniers.html .


As it happens, last week also saw astronomer and Sun expert Dr David Whitehouse further the case for Solar forcing's majority influence


http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3223603.ece .

Whitehouse reported that it's been months since any sunspots have been observed:


"After a period of exceptionally high activity in the 20th century, our Sun has suddenly gone exceptionally quiet."


The significance of which might become quite evident quite quickly. You see, whenever presented with the obvious (and logical) correlations between solar activity and Terran climate in the past, Solar Deniers claimed that continued elevations in global temperatures after 1998 somehow disproved any direct connection. While insignificant in long-term analysis, Whitehouse nonetheless attributed this to the rapid increase between 1978 and 1998, after which average temps have held their high, but steady, level:


"Almost everyone agrees that throughout most of the last century the solar influence was significant. Studies show that by the end of the 20th century the Sun's activity may have been at its highest for more than 8,000 years."


He suggests we're actually in a period of solar activity low enough to not only counteract any GHG increases, but, as proposed by Russian Academy of Sciences members, actually cause temperatures to drop 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2020.


Whitehouse dubs this new Solar season, which may even usher in another Little Ice Age, the Modern Solar Minimum. The good doctor also lists it with previously correlative periods the greenies completely ignore:


* Modern Solar Minimum (2000-?)

* Modern Climate Optimum (1890-2000) - the world is getting warmer. Concentrations of greenhouse gas increase. Solar activity increases.

* Dalton Solar Minimum (1790-1820) - global temperatures are lower than average.

* Maunder Solar Minimum (1645-1715) - coincident with the 'Little Ice Age'.

* Spörer Solar Minimum (1420-1530) - discovered by the analysis of radioactive carbon in tree rings that correlate with solar activity - colder weather. Greenland settlements abandoned.

* Wolf Solar Minimum (1280-1340) - climate deterioration begins. Life gets harder in Greenland.

* Medieval Solar Maximum (1075-1240) - coincides with Medieval Warm Period. Vikings from Norway and Iceland found settlements in Greenland and North America.

* Oort Solar Minimum (1010-1050) - temperature on Earth is colder than average.


If current trends continue, 2007 will be the coolest year this century, perhaps the coolest since 1995.


Of course, should temperatures continue to drop off precipitously while CO2 levels continue to rise, those intent on wielding both political and economic power through junk-science know they will have missed their opportunity to do so.


The Death of the Red Masque


Its science is unmitigated junk. Its solutions are unworkable. Its corruption runs so deep as to be worthy of a Hague forum [or rather Tribunal]. But there's more.


One upshot of Bali thus far has been the demand by China and India that the U.N steward the transfer of low-carbon energy technology the Intellectual Property not of Western governments, but of their private enterprises. Its unity with this and a proposal for a "technology transfer fund" that industrialized nations would be forced to pay into for developing countries withdrawal to finance clean energy technology projects or purchase patents should end any doubt of the U.N's socialist objectives.


Yet they're apparently not red enough for some greens, as many less developed countries told the conference they were being deprived of benefits. That's right - they complained that carbon offsetting pays companies to cut emissions, but undeveloped countries - particularly in Africa - have few emissions to start with and would not gain from such reductions.


Sound familiar? Like the Democrats who constantly complain that tax cuts, while benefiting tax-payers, do nothing for those not earning enough to pay taxes?


And speaking of domestically grown lefties - should they really wish to relate Kyoto to Warner-Lieberman, then they can neither deny nor escape the corollary of the faults of each. By setting utopian limits and assuming that technology will rise to meet them, both play a dangerous game with human posterity.


At home, utility companies would be forced to either invest heavily in uncertain R&D or move away from coal altogether, retooling their plants for alternate fuels such as natural gas. Neither solution bodes well for their customers, who would themselves be forced to make the choice between paying hugely higher rates for their heat and electricity (if they can) or suffering long seasons without them. How many of those responsible for the current Democrat majorities might then ponder their vote as they struggle to keep their families warm while battling soaring inflation?


Internationally, the trade warfare the UN plan would impose impedes global development while likely doing nothing to aid any but the corrupt leaders of the very poor nations the union is duplicitously scheming to uplift. And, as it needlessly degrades the economies of all prosperous nations involved, it would ultimately be just another socialist experiment gone horribly wrong - this time on a devastatingly global level.


And all in an effort to prevent an impending storm they likely know full well never actually threatened.


Disgraceful.


While Bali's pulse grows faint, the adolescent green dream of controlling climate through a new world order may smell funny - but it's not quite dead.


Given the extent of the madness, even armed with a sudden extended cooling such as that predicted by Whitehouse and others, it won't be an easy kill.


However -- it will be an essential one.

EU threatens to boycott US climate talks

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071213/ap_on_re_as/bali_climate_conference;_ylt=AjOiexr_6go0pkkPN8gAmNpn.3QA





[LET THEM, SAYS THE ITSSD....THE U.S., JAPAN & RUSSIA WERE CORRECT TO REFUSE DRACONIAN GHG EMISSIONS CUTS!!]


By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer


Thu Dec 13, 6:26 PM ET


European nations threatened Thursday to boycott U.S.-sponsored climate talks next month unless the Bush administration compromises and agrees to a "road map" for reducing greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.


With the U.N. climate conference in its final hours, Nobel laureate Al Gore said the United States was "principally responsible" for blocking progress here toward an agreement on launching negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. [HIS NOMINATION CERTAINLY DEVALUES THE VALUE OF & GRAVITAS SURROUNDING THIS AWARD]**


But the former vice president urged delegations to reach the required unanimous agreement before the conference's end on Friday, even if it meant putting aside goals for emissions cuts.


"You can do one of two things here," Gore said. "You can feel anger and frustration and direct it at the United States of America, or you can make a second choice. You can decide to move forward and do all of the difficult work that needs to be done." [IS MR. GORE FAMILIAR WITH AMERICAN HISTORY?? BENEDICT ARNOLD??]


The United States, Japan, Russia and several other governments refused to accept language in a draft document suggesting rich nations consider cutting emissions 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020, saying specific targets would limit the scope of future talks.


European nations and others argued that numerical goals are essential reference points in efforts to curb global warming.


All sides agree it is impossible to deal with climate change unless the United States is involved. It is the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and the only major industrial country that did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

President Bush views his own climate talks as the main vehicle for determining action by the U.S. — and, he hopes, by others. The Jan. 30-31 session in Honolulu is a continuation of September talks at the White House called the Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change.


The U.S. has invited 16 major economies, including European countries, Japan, China and India, to discuss a program of what are expected to be nationally determined, voluntary cutbacks in greenhouse gas emissions.


But the EU warned it would stay away unless Washington drops its opposition to mandatory cuts.


"No result in Bali means no Major Economies Meeting," said Sigmar Gabriel, the top EU environment official. "This is the clear position of the EU. I do not know what we should talk about if there is no target."


The main goal in Bali is to kick-start two years of intense dialogue about how to slow global warming and head off scientific predictions of rising sea levels, worsening floods and droughts, and losing plant and animal species.


Yvo de Boer, the U.N. climate chief, said he worried the U.S.-EU deadlock could derail any consensus in Bali on how to proceed.


"I'm very concerned about the pace of things," he said. "If we don't get wording on the future, then the whole house of cards falls to pieces."


The U.S. delegation said that while it continued to reject inclusion of specific emission cut targets, it hoped eventually to reach an agreement that would be "environmentally effective" and "economically sustainable."


"We don't have to resolve all these issues ... here in Bali," said Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, head of the American delegation.


Also Thursday, U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is remaining in Bali longer than scheduled because of the "very critical phase of the negotiating process" at the climate conference.


Ban has spoken to Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a number of times on the issue, and would be holding round-the clock talks with all countries there, including the U.S., Okabe said.


The Kyoto Protocol requires 37 industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by the pact's expiration in 2012. Australia was the latest industrial country to ratify the pact, soon after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was elected.


Bush rejected the Kyoto pact on the grounds it would harm the U.S. economy and its provisions did not apply to poorer but fast-developing nations such as China and India, whose emission levels are growing fast.


China and India have called on the West to take the lead in cutting emissions and insist they will not agree to any targets that would slow the pace of development. But neither publicly says whether they would support emission targets.


Appearing at the U.N. conference four days after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on alerting people to the threat from rising temperatures, Gore challenged delegates packing a meeting hall to forge an agreement with an eye on history.


"Instead of shaking our heads at the difficulty of this path and saying this is impossible, how can we do this, we ought to feel a sense of joy that we have work that is worth doing that is so important to the future of human kind," he said.


"You have everything that you need, we have everything we need except political will. But political will is a renewable resource."


Gore criticized the United States as "principally responsible for obstructing progress" in Bali, raising loud cheers from the delegates. But he also urged them to reach an agreement, which he said a future U.S. administration would likely support.


"Over the next two years, the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now," he said, noting that all Democratic and several Republican presidential candidates support mandatory emission cuts.



[WOULD ALL OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES SUPPORTING MANDATORY EMISSIONS CUTS STATE IT FOR THE RECORD BEFORE THE ELECTION???]


"I must tell you candidly that I can not promise that the person who is elected will have the position I expect they will have, but I can tell you I believe it is quite likely," Gore said.


Kristen Hellmer, a member of the U.S. delegation, said Gore's assertions were untrue.


"The U.S. is being open and working very constructively with the other countries that are here," she said. "We are rolling our sleeves up and really working to come up with a global post-2012 framework."

BALI TALKS SEEK NEW FALSE POST-KYOTO 2012 PRETENSE FOR FUTURE UN TAXATION OF GLOBAL OCEANS & ATMOSPHERE COMMONS

Climate Talks Faltering on Emissions Limits, UN Says (Update4)





By Alex Morales and Mathew Carr


Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Climate talks to set a timetable for a new global warming treaty may collapse because the U.S. is resisting mandatory reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions.


The negotiations have failed so far to get the U.S. to accept a cut of as much as 40 percent in emissions by 2020, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer told reporters today in Bali, Indonesia, where the talks are being held. The target was proposed this week by the European Union, a group of 130 developing nations and China.


Delegates to the meeting say the U.S. resistance threatens progress on an accord to replace the emissions-limiting Kyoto Protocol that runs out in 2012. The new treaty to fight climate change should be agreed to by the end of 2009, to ensure a smooth transition between Kyoto and its successor, de Boer said.


``To put it very directly and honestly, we are disappointed that having reached this stage of the negotiations we still haven't heard from the U.S. what is their level of ambition or engagement with the Bali road map,'' Humberto Rosa, Portugal's environment secretary of state and spokesman for the European Union, said today. Tomorrow is the final day of talks.


Representatives from more than 150 nations have gathered in Bali to hammer out an agenda for talks leading to a Kyoto replacement. The countries agreed today on a plan to establish a program to supply developing nations with environmentally sound technology such as wind turbines and solar panels, de Boer said.


Slowing Progress


The EU has said delegates should include an emissions target in the road map so that countries have a goal to work toward in the talks. The U.S. says any target and how to reach it should be determined during negotiations on the treaty, not now.


U.S. insistence that formal treaty talks should start without a set target on emissions for developed nations is slowing progress, said Su Wei, the deputy head of the Chinese delegation to the UN-sponsored meeting. China and the U.S., the two largest emitters, are key to any new agreement to slash greenhouse gases.


The U.S., the only developed nation not to ratify the Kyoto treaty, doesn't want to commit to emissions cuts of as much as 40 percent because ``it technically can't be achieved,'' White House chief environmental adviser James Connaughton said today in an interview in Bali.


``Those who are suggesting that you can magically find agreement on a metric, when you are just starting negotiations, that in itself is a blocking effort,'' Connaughton said. ``Even the legislation pending in our Congress from those on the furthest left on this issue have not proposed anything that strong.''


Japan, Australia


Japan has joined the U.S. in opposing the emissions targets, and Australia has said it won't commit to specific targets until it gets the results of a government-commissioned report on greenhouse gases.


``When negotiations get to a point of flux, with a couple of days to go, it is important we have appropriate flexibility to make sure all parties remain,'' Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said today in Bali.


Senators Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and head of the environmental committee, and Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, are among 52 members of Congress sending Bush a letter urging him to support emissions-reductions goals.


U.S. `Obstructing'


The U.S. is ``obstructing'' climate change talks, and the nation's climate policy will change in the next two years, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said today. Emissions targets must be part of a climate treaty that must take effect in 2010, he told Bali delegates in a speech.


``We must leave here with a strong mandate,'' Gore said. ``This is not the time for business as usual.''


The latest draft of the agenda for talks, handed to delegates today, refers to the 25 to 40 percent emissions goal, though it says that view is held by parties to the Kyoto Protocol, a group that excludes the U.S.


``This may be a diplomatic formulation that allows the Europeans to get the numbers in that they want, and the U.S. to go home and claim they aren't bound by those numbers,'' Andrew Deutz, senior policy adviser at The Nature Conservancy, said today in an interview in Bali.


The UNFCCC's De Boer said agreement must be reached by noon tomorrow so that the draft documents relating to each issue can be translated into six languages, photocopied and distributed in time to ministers, who will then have to accept them in an afternoon meeting.


Deadline Tomorrow


Some delegates are optimistic that the U.S., the European Union and China will come to an agreement before de Boer's deadline tomorrow.


``Negotiators always keep cards close to the chest until the last day,'' Emil Salim, head of the Indonesian delegates, said in a press briefing today. ``Tomorrow, early in the morning when everybody's a little bit sleepy, you'll get certain compromises. Tomorrow I see things moving.''

The Petition Project – More Than 19,000 Sign Petition Urging U.S. Administration Not to Ratify Kyoto Protocol

Monday, November 19, 2007





Global Warming Petition


We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.


There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.


This petition has been signed by over 19,000 American scientists.


A listing of all signers by state is accessible at:



http://www.sitewave.net/pproject/listbystate.htm


Information:


... Qualification to be a signatory requires that the individual have a university degree in physical science, either BS, MS, or PhD. Those with MS or PhD degrees are so designated. Those with BS degrees are undesignated or sometimes designated as MD if appropriate.


The costs of this petition project have been paid entirely by private donations. No industrial funding or money from sources within the coal, oil, natural gas or related industries has been utilized. The petition's organizers, who include some faculty members and staff of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, do not otherwise receive funds from such sources. The Institute itself has no such funding. Also, no funds of tax-exempt organizations have been used for this project.


The signatures and the text of the petition stand alone and speak for themselves. These scientists have signed this specific document. They are not associated with any particular organization. Their signatures represent a strong statement about this important issue by many of the best scientific minds in the United States.


This project is titled "Petition Project" and uses a mailing address of its own because the organizers desired an independent, individual opinion from each scientist based on the scientific issues involved - without any implied endorsements of individuals, groups, or institutions.


In a listing of this size, some apparently duplicate names and some names identical to real or fictional people who are not scientists or signatories occur by chance. This listing has been very carefully verified. It contains one and only one entry for each scientist and contains no entries for individuals who are not trained in science or who did not sign the petition.


Our e-mail address, for the purposes of this project, is: artr@oism.org


[A copy of the petition is accessible here: http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWPetition.pdf ...]


Letter from Frederick Seitz:


Research Review of Global Warming Evidence


Enclosed is a twelve-page review of information on the subject of "global warming," a petition in the form of a reply card, and a return envelope. Please consider these materials carefully.


The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds.


This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.


Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide


A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th Century have produced no deleterious effects upon global weather, climate, or temperature. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth rates. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in minor greenhouse gases like CO2 are in error and do not conform to current experimental knowledge.


Note: The Petition Project has no funding from energy industries or other parties with special financial interests in the "global warming" debate. Funding for the project comes entirely from private non-tax deductible donations by interested individuals.