Insider Report
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Global Warming Scientist Admits Doubts
2. Earmark Spending Rises in 2010
3. Russia Delays Missile Sale to Iran
4. We Heard: Bill O’Reilly, Members of Congress
1. Global Warming Scientist Admits Doubts
Proponents of man-made global warming have suffered a serious blow as leading climate change scientist Phil Jones now acknowledges that the earth may have been warmer in medieval times than now.
Jones also conceded in an interview with the BBC that during the past 15 years there has been no “statistically significant” warming.
“The admissions will be seized on by skeptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely made-made,” Britain‘s Daily Mail observed.
Jones recently stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in Britain after leaked e-mails indicated that scientists there were manipulating data to strengthen the argument for man-made global warming.
The data have been used to support efforts by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to urge governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions and to produce the “hockey stick graph” that shows temperatures relatively stable for centuries before rising sharply in recent decades.
Critics of global warming crusaders believe there is evidence that the world was warmer than today between about 800 and 1300 A.D., during the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP), due to evidence of high temperatures in northern countries.
“There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not,” Jones said in the interview.
“The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic, and Europe and parts of Asia.
“For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.
“Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today, then obviously the late 20th century warmth would not be unprecedented.”
Marc Sheppard, environment editor of American Thinker, declares: “As the entire anthropogenic global warming theory is predicated on correlation with rising CO2 levels, this first-such confession from an IPCC senior scientist is nothing short of earth-shattering.”
He also writes: “Indeed, we know that, during the MWP, ice-free seas allowed the Vikings to settle a then comfortably warm Greenland, where colonies flourished for many centuries. Modern archaeologists digging through [Greenland’s] permafrost have uncovered bones and artifacts attesting to the villages established there.”
Despite his concession that there has been no “statistically significant” warming over the past 15 years, Jones still maintains that he is “100 percent confident” the climate has warmed and said “there’s evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.”
Editor's Note:
2. Earmark Spending Rises in 2010
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama called for reducing the amount spent on congressional earmarks to the 1994 level, about $8 billion.
But the money directed by lawmakers to specific projects in their districts actually rose to $15.9 billion in Obama’s fiscal year 2010 budget, according to a study by Taxpayers for Common Sense, an independent watchdog dedicated to eliminating waste.
Lawmakers included 9,499 earmarks in the budget. In fiscal year 2009, the budget had 11,286 earmarks totaling $19.9 billion. But that figure included $1.8 billion in an emergency war-spending bill, $2.3 billion in earmarks for Army Corps of Engineers projects, and about $200 million for earmarked disaster aid.
If those outlays are subtracted from the overall total, it drops to $15.6 billion, less than this year’s figure. And the 2010 total is likely to rise with passage of another emergency war-spending bill, The Hill newspaper reports.
Eight of the top 10 earmark recipients in the Senate are Democrats, and 6 of the top 10 are members of the Appropriations Committee. But the top recipient is a Republican, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, who received 242 earmarks totaling $497 million. He is followed by Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye, who received $392 million in earmarks for his state.
In the House, Florida Republican Bill Young leads the way with $128.6 million in earmarks, followed by Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., with $82.7 million, and the late John Murtha, D-Pa., with $82.4 million.
All of the top 10 earmark recipients in the House are members of the Appropriations Committee with the exception of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“High levels of special interest spending remain and powerful lawmakers are hoarding cash for their districts while the rest of the Congress fights for table scraps,” Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said in a statement.
“Spending should be a meritocracy. Instead of simply rewarding the constituents or campaign contributors of the politically powerful, our taxpayer dollars must be spent on only the most critical and important projects nationwide.”
Editor's Note:
3. Russia Delays Missile Sale to Iran
A top Russian official said “technical problems” will delay the delivery to Iran of air defense missiles that the Islamic Republic could use to defend its nuclear development sites.
Russia and Iran reached agreement on the S-300 missiles in 2007. The truck-mounted missile can shoot down aircraft or missiles up to 90 miles away, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Alexander Fomin, deputy head of Russia’s Federal Military-Technical Cooperation Service, said on Wednesday that the delay in the delivery of the missiles “is taking place because of technical problems. The delivery will take place when they have been resolved.”
However, the statement came the day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his delegation met with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and urged the Kremlin not to complete the missile sale. Netanyahu said after the meeting: “Russia understands the Iranian problem, and that is obvious even more so today.”
The Jerusalem Post reported: “Some observers suggest Russia is holding back delivery to pressure Iran to cooperate with the international community in the dispute over its nuclear program.”
And one of the missile’s chief designers, Vladimir Kasparyants, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying: “There are no technical questions. It’s a political issue.”
Israel has said in the past that the sale of S-300s to Iran would tip the strategic balance in the region.
Editor's Note:
4. We Heard . . .
THAT Fox News host and best-selling author Bill O’Reilly will publish his first history book, “Killing Lincoln.”
Along with co-author Martin Dugard, O’Reilly will examine the murder of President Abraham Lincoln and the hunt for his assassin John Wilkes Booth.
“Billy O’Reilly is going to surprise everyone again,” said Stephen Rubin, president of Henry Holt and Company, which will publish the work.
“Bill’s last book, ‘A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity,’ is still on the best-seller list for more than a year, and I am looking forward to topping that success.”
O’Reilly said: “We have uncovered some startling new information about Lincoln’s assassination which readers will find interesting, to say the least.”
The book is scheduled for release in Fall 2011.
THAT 62 percent of Americans agree that “most members of Congress” do not deserve re-election, a new poll reveals.
The CNN/Opinion Research survey found that just 35 percent of respondents believe most members deserve re-election, and 3 percent have no opinion.
Back in September 2002, just 28 percent of respondents thought most members did not deserve re-election.
In the new poll, 54 percent of respondents said most Democratic members of Congress do not deserve re-election, and 56 percent said most Republicans don’t deserve to be re-elected.
The poll reflects a growing frustration with Congress echoed by Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, who recently said ever-shriller partisanship and the frustrations of gridlock convinced him not to run for re-election in November.
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