No free speech in Australia, Carbon tax rules! A Limerick.

Gal Julia Gillard, P.M. from Canberra

Does not like free speech, not on her Firma Terra.*

Don’t mention the prices

The Carbon tax rises.

Obama and Julia. Transparency – Ha!

* The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has issued warnings to businesses that they will face whopping fines of up to $1.1m if they blame the carbon tax for price rises. It says it has been “directed by the Australian government to undertake a compliance and enforcement role in relation to claims made about the impact of a carbon price.” Businesses are not even allowed to throw special carbon tax sales promotions before the tax arrives on July 1.

Obama’s 2011 Thanksgiving proclamation vs. George Washington’s 1789 proclamation. A contrast.

 Left: President Obama at second swearing in ceremony in the White House. Notice the absence of the Holy Bible.

Things like that are not important to this President.

Obama’s 2011 Thanksgiving Proclamation: One of our Nation’s oldest and most cherished traditions, Thanksgiving Day brings us closer to our loved ones and invites us to reflect on the blessings that enrich our lives. The observance recalls the celebration of an autumn harvest centuries ago, when the Wampanoag tribe joined the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony to share in the fruits of a bountiful season. The feast honored the Wampanoag for generously extending their knowledge of local game and agriculture to the Pilgrims, and today we renew our gratitude to all American Indians and Alaska Natives. We take this time to remember the ways that the First Americans have enriched our Nation’s heritage, from their generosity centuries ago to the everyday contributions they make to all facets of American life. As we come together with friends, family, and neighbors to celebrate, let us set aside our daily concerns and give thanks for the providence bestowed upon us. Though our traditions have evolved, the spirit of grace and humility at the heart of Thanksgiving has persisted through every chapter of our story. When President George Washington proclaimed our country’s first Thanksgiving, he praised a generous and knowing God for shepherding our young Republic through its uncertain beginnings. Decades later, President Abraham Lincoln looked to the divine to protect those who had known the worst of civil war, and to restore the Nation “to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.” In times of adversity and times of plenty, we have lifted our hearts by giving humble thanks for the blessings we have received and for those who bring meaning to our lives. Today, let us offer gratitude to our men and women in uniform for their many sacrifices, and keep in our thoughts the families who save an empty seat at the table for a loved one stationed in harm’s way. And as members of our American family make do with less, let us rededicate ourselves to our friends and fellow citizens in need of a helping hand. As we gather in our communities and in our homes, around the table or near the hearth, we give thanks to each other and to God for the many kindnesses and comforts that grace our lives. Let us pause to recount the simple gifts that sustain us, and resolve to pay them forward in the year to come.

 NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 24, 2011, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage the people of the United States to come together whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place of fellowship for friends and neighbors to give thanks for all we have received in the past year, to express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own, and to share our bounty with others. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-sixth.

God is not mentioned until the second paragraph, where He is referred to as a generous and knowing God. The original 1621 Thanksgiving celebration is now referred to as a feast which only purpose was to thank the Wampanoag tribe. Nothing could be more incomplete. While they did invite and thank the Indians, the primary object of their thanksgiving was the Sovereign and Almighty God for his bountiful provision.

Compare this 2011 proclamation with:  George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:” Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becomming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us. And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other trangressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best. Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.

This reminds me of a famous quote from Fiddler on the roof: Chava: The world is changing, Papa! Tevye: [rounding on her] No! [calmly] Tevye: No. Some things do not change for us. Some things will never change.

And so it is: God is still God Almighty and Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

Thanksgiving without God. Barack and Esther. A Limerick.

Can folks have Thanksgiving and not mention God? (1)

Esther does not even once mention God. (2)

“If I perish, I perish” (3)

An expression to cherish.

T’was Sarah’s and Bibi’s Thanksgiving, Thank God! (4)

(1). President Obama in his Thanksgiving radio address reflected on how truly lucky we are. He gave thanks to the troops and volunteers in soup kitchens and spread it around. In fact, he gave thanks to just about everybody, but not God.

(2)There is a book in the Holy Bible that does not mention the name of God, not even once. The book is Esther (Hadassah in Hebrew). Yet God is everywhere between the lines, just not expressed in words.

(3)When Sarah Palin abruptly resigned as Governor less than 3 years into her term, she went fishing. The press was there and asked her many questions. She claimed the reasons for her resignation were so obvious that anybody should get it. Liberal interviewers are not just anybody, so they kept asking. In one of her answers she said the phrase from Esther, slightly concealed “If I die, I die”. This was too deep for the interviewers, for they do not even know there is a book in the Bible called Esther, and if they do they would never admit it, for the Bible is not something about which they are supposed to acknowledge any knowledge.

(4)In March 2011 Governor Sarah Palin’s arrived in Jerusalem just as Israelis celebrated the festivities of Purim.

Purim is the day Jews celebrate the story of Esther. It’s a very festive day. Kids dress up and food gifts are distributed to family and friends. People are very joyous and there is a lot of singing and dancing in the streets. It’s customary to drink lots of wine on Purim. It is also a day of giving a plenty of money to charity.

Governor Palin joined Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his family for dinner in Jerusalem on Monday evening; The Purim dinner!

No budget passed in 3 years, Obama’s last failed 97-0. Blame the Republicans! A limerick.

A thousand days passed and no budget in sight.

The Democrats will not do anything right.

Both Obama and Reid

Fail our country in need.

They blame the Republicans, try as they might.

The cause of Climate Change is still up in the air.

The cause of Climate Change is still up in the air. Sherlock Holmes: “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts”. From: “Scandal in Bohemia” A. Conan Doyle.

The first Earth Day in Philadelphia 1970, April 22 (the 100 year anniversary of Lenin’s Birth) featured Ira Einhorn (The Unicorn Killer) as master of Ceremonies. The big environmental scare of the day was the threat of a new Ice Age. The clarion call was: “In the year 2000 temperatures will have fallen 10 degrees”, the culprit was pollution, especially acid rain. The acid rain was so bad in the Adirondacks, Canada, Norway and Sweden that the Rainbow Trout died in droves, and even the oceans were in danger of getting too acid. Regulations were enacted to add scrubbers to power stations, waste water was purified, and – wouldn’t you know it, the cooling trend reversed itself and was followed by warming. Since the cooling trend was “obviously man-made” they had to find a reason for the sudden warming. Never mind that around the year 1200 there was at least one farm on South West Greenland that exported, among other things, cheese. How do we know that? They have excavated the ruins of a farm, “Gården under Sanden”, buried under permafrost for five centuries.  During these five centuries the Northern Hemisphere experienced what is called “the little ice age” a time when the winters could be so cold that in 1658 the Swedish army, cavalry and artillery crossed the Belts in the southern Baltic over ice and sacked Copenhagen.

Picture left: Gården under sanden excavation.

Picture right: The crossing of the Great Belt 1658.

To predict future climate changes many computer models have been developed dealing with how the earth responds to changes in atmospheric conditions, especially how it responds to changes in CO2 levels.  Most were developed in the 1970 to 2000 time frame, a time of rapid temperature rise and as such they were all given a large factor for the influence of rising CO2. Since 2005 we have had a cooling trend, so the models cooperate less and less and are given more and more unreliable predictions. It is no wonder then that they all have failed to model the past. None of them have reproduced the medieval warm period or the little ice age. If they cannot agree with the past there is no reason to believe they have any ability to predict the future. The models are particularly bad when it comes to predict cloud cover and what time of day clouds appear and disappear. Below is a chart of a number of climate models and their prediction of cloud cover versus observed data. Note especially to the right where they completely fail to notice the clear skies over Antarctica.

Is there a better way to predict future temperature trends? When you go to the doctor for a physical, at some point and without warning he hits you under the knee with a hammer and watches your reaction. He is observing your impulse response. Can we observe impulse responses for the earth? One obvious case is volcanic explosions. Sometimes the earth burps a lot of carbon dioxide or methane. But the most interesting response would be how the earth responds to a solar flare  with a sudden change in the amount of cosmic radiation hitting the earth. That would give the best indication how the sun and cosmic radiation affects cloud formation. A couple of solar flares lately have been giving us a hint how the cloud cover responds to changes in cosmic radiation, and they are consistent with the latest results from the CLOUD project conducted using the CERN particle accelerator, a confirmation of a theory forwarded by the Danish Physicist Henrik Svensmark. He first presented the theory in 1997 and finally got the results verified and published in 2007, but the prevailing consensus has been slow to accept the theory that the sun as the primary driver of climate change. We have many reasons to be concerned about the well-being of the earth, but rising levels of CO2 is not one of them. In fact, CO2 is our friend. Rising CO2 levels increases crop yields, makes the impact of land use changes less pronounced and the photosynthesis process more efficient, using less water and allowing us to grow crops on land once deemed unprofitable.

Picture right: The CERN Cloud apparatus in 2009.

James Hansen, a world famous climate science activist/NASA physicist writes in one of his publications, called “Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications“. It contains a quote that ties nicely in with Sherlock Holmes observation:  The precision achieved by the most advanced generation of radiation budget satellites is indicated by the planetary energy imbalance measured by the ongoing CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) instrument (Loeb et al., 2009), which finds a measured 5-year-mean imbalance of 6.5 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009). Because this result is implausible, instrumentation calibration factors were introduced to reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models, 0.85 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009).

There we have it. The observed data does not fit the climate models. Change the observed data! Then use that data to validate the climate models! How convEEnient, as the SNL Churchlady used to say. Shenanigans like this have been exposed in what has been named “Climategate1.0”, followed by “Climategate2.0” and soon to be released “Climategate3.0” This is what happens when politicians take over science and make further funding contingent on obtaining desired results.

 

Sarah Palin may yet enter the Republican field. It is not too late. Do the math.

Who said: “It is not yet too late to jump in”?

And said it no less with a Cheshire cat grin?

 Why, it’s Sarah, of course.

She will throw them off course.

Cards close to her vest; she is destined to win.

“You know, it’s not too late for folks to jump in. Who knows what will happen in the future?” former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said near the close of her two-segment interview with Eric Bolling of Follow the Money from her home in Wasilla, Alaska, Dec 19, 2011. Bolling had questioned Gov. Palin if she would be entering the race even after Iowa and New Hampshire. Gov. Palin will not currently endorse a declared candidate. After this quote she very skillfully changed the topic to her desire to host a candidate debate together with Bolling about energy policy, and so she cut off all follow-up questions.

State….                     Deadline            Primary/Caucus               Delegates

Iowa                             closed                                1/3                     28

New Hampshire        closed                1/10                                   12

South Carolina           closed                1/21                                   25* no write-ins

Florida                          closed                1/31                                  50

Michigan                     closed                 2/28                                30*

Arizona                         closed                2/28                                 29

Tennessee                    closed                 3/6                                   58

Virginia                         closed                 3/6                                  50

Oklahoma                     closed                 3/6                                  43

Massachusetts             closed                  3/6                                   41

Vermont                       closed                  3/6                                    17

Alabama                       closed                  3/13                                  50

Mississippi                   closed                  3/13                                 40

Illinois                           closed                  3/20                                69

Louisiana                     closed                  3/24                                 46

Maryland                      closed                  4/3                                    37   Winner take all

Wisconsin                    closed                  4/3                                    42    Winner take all

Dist of Columbia         closed                 4/3                                    19     Winner take allnner take all

Rhode Island               closed                  4/24                                 19     Winner take all

West Virginia               closed                  5/8                                   31     Winner take all

Kentucky                       closed                 5/22                                 45     Winner take all

Texas                              closed                 4/3                                   155    Winner take all

Caucuses , proportional

Nevada                          none                  2/4                                   28

Maine                            none                  2-4 till 2/11                     24

Colorado                       none                   2/7                                  36

Minnesota                     none                   2/7                                 40

Washington                  none                   3/3                                  43

Georgia                          none                   3/6                                 76

Alaska                            none                   3/6                                 27

North Dakota               none                   3/6                                 28

Idaho                              none                  3/6                                 32

Wyoming                       none                  3/6 til 3/10                   29

Kansas                            none                 3/10                                40

Virgin Islands                none                 3/10                                  9

American Samoa          none                 3/13                                   9

Hawaii                             none                 3/13                               20

Missouri                          none                3/17                                52

Puerto Rico                     none                3/18                                23

Guam                               none                tba                                     9

Northern Marianas       none                 tba                                    9

Primaries  winner take all

New York                        2/9                   4/24                               95

Indiana                           2/10                  5/8                                 46

Pennsylvania                  2/14                 4/24                               72

Delaware                         2/24                 4/24                               17

Arkansas                        3/1                     5/22                               36

Connecticut                   3/2                    4/24                               28

Oregon                          3/6                    5/15                                 29

Nebraska                      3/7                    5/15                                  35

Montana                       3/12                   6/5                                   26

Utah                             3/15                   6/26                                 40

New Mexico                 3/16                  6/5                                    23

California                     3/23                  6/5                                  172

South Dakota              3/27                  6/5                                    28

New Jersey                  4/2                    6/5                                    50

Ohio                               ???                    3/6                                    66

North Carolina             ???                    5/8                                    55

January 3 – March 5, 2012: Contests of traditional early states Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina March 6 – March 31, 2012: Contests that proportionally allocate delegates April 1, 2012 and onward: Florida is winner take all, but is under challenge. All other contests including winner-take-all elections

Do the math. If Ron Paul wins Iowa all bets are off, and another entry is not only possible but probable. If Sarah gets in at this late stage she will get proportional delegates from 16 caucases totaling 534 delegates. Sarah Palin will have to catch on in the caucuses to make a challenge possible. It is a tall order, but not impossible.