Expecting frozen precip. 

 

http://wwwa.accuweather.com/radar-large.asp?partner=forecastfox&traveler=1&site=GA_&type=SIR&anim=1&level=state&large=1

A Sainted high profile Deomocrat involved in a help-your-buddy ethics-questionable land deal ......  my, my, my!!!     Thanks for all who voted for a "change" ................... you're not getting your money's worth ....... business as usual higher taxes, man the lifeboats to get through the river of BS.  Nothing has or will change except their table full of chattering teeth winding down to a dead stop now they're elected.

---

"A deal in the desert for Sen. Reid

A bill he wrote could have affected the friend who sold the land.

Wonder how AlBore and his team of Chicken Little scaremongers will spin this? 

---

"The Sun Moves Climate Change

News around here has said there have been massive protest resignations at the Carter Center.  Wonder why????

This article says 'follow the money" which sounds like another Democrat selling us out to Middle East oil $$$$$$$ like Clinton did to Chinese $$$$$$$$$.  Do they consider us mushrooms to be kept in the dark and fed BS or do they consider us modern day slaves to be sold to the highest bidder?

I would also like to see the $$$$$$$$$ trail behind media financing as to who has their hand in the sock puppet moving its mouth telling the world that world opinion of the US is dropping.  FOLLOW THE $$$$$$$$$ doing brainwashing ... but this is one person not buying into the BS.

---

 

http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=NmVlNzc4OWI5YTc4MDY1MzhiMDM2OWRhNjgzYzk0ZTk=JRA

"A CORRECTION ABOUT OBAMA

Dear Friend,

My abject apologies!  I was wrong in saying that Senator Barak Obama voted against a ban on spouses working for Senators on their campaign or PAC payrolls. 

Obama voted against tabling the bill, not against the bill itself. He was one of only a handful of Democrats that did so (most Republicans backed the reform). 

The attempt to bring the ban to a vote failed last week, but the Senate adopted it last night.
 
Sometimes its tough to follow the twists and turns of Senate votes and, in this case, I messed up.
 
I'll try to see that it doesn't happen again.
 
I've published a front page apology to Obama in The Hill where the column appeared in a print version.
 
Thanks for reading my columns.  I hope you like them.
 
Yours,
Dick Morris "

A 'divine revelation' came to me past couple of days about "global warming" CAUSATION hype as to its only good point .... it creates an environment in which alternate sources of energy can be developed which won't bankroll terrorists via oil money.  Also keeps oil profits out of the pockets of greedy global elitists who seem to believe their acquisition of $$$$$ entitles them to buy the type global government to rule over everyone else.  Case in point oil for money bribes flowing into UN members and their families.

Picked this up via    http://www.drudgereport.com/

---

THE SUN IS IN A HOTTER BURNING CYCLE WHICH IS HEATING UP OUR ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM .... this deliberate omission is the "Inconvenient Truth.'

---

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=3a9bc8a4-802a-23ad-4065-7dc37ec39adf

 

Quoted directly from Powerlineblog.com.

 

"OBAMA’S FIRST BLUNDER

By DICK MORRIS

"January 17, 2006 -- Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made his first misstep a few days ago when he joined only a handful of Democrats in opposing a Senate reform banning the increasingly widespread practice of legislators hiring their family members on their campaign or PAC payrolls. Obama has not heard the last of this vote.  Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who opposes wives cashing in on their husbands’ positions, voted righteously in favor of the reform and will probably use the Illinois senator’s vote against him in the presidential primaries.

When a legislator hires his or her spouse on the campaign or PAC payroll, he is effectively converting contributions to his campaign committee into personal income that flows into the family’s checking account, blurring the line between contribution and bribe.

In the past, senators and House members routinely hired their spouses and other family members on their public payrolls. In the early 1940s, for example, Harry S. Truman hired his wife, Bess, to work on his Senate staff. She got $2,500 a year in salary at a time when senators themselves only earned $8,500. But nepotism on the public payroll is now banned. So inventive congressmen and senators have filled the void by hiring family on their campaign or PAC payrolls.

Hiring family members and paying them with campaign donations is, if anything, more pernicious than doing so with public funds. Where tax money is involved, the sin is against the taxpayer for wasting his funds. But where campaign contributions are involved, the congressman is profiting personally from the largesse of special interest donors. In plain English, that’s a payoff.

There is, of course, a certain hypocrisy in the Senate action since very few senators, in fact, hire their families on their payrolls. It is, though, widely practiced in the House of Representatives, where 30 members have their families on their payrolls. But senators are much less likely to do so. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who voted “present” on the reform, hired her son, Douglas, a lobbyist, to manage her PAC, paying him $130,000 over a four-year period. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, then a Democrat, hired his son, Matthew, for $34,000 and his daughter, Rebecca, for $36,000 to work on his 2004 presidential campaign.

So the congressional ethics reform of 2007 boils down to this: The House banned the use of corporate jets but the Senate did not, even though senators are more likely to avail themselves of the luxury than is the average House member. The Senate banned hiring family members but the House did not, even though House members are far more likely to hire their significant others to work for them.

Obama’s inexplicable pro-nepotism vote may have been cast in sympathy with Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), whose hiring of his wife, Sandi, to work on his campaign prompted an FEC ruling allowing the practice. Jackson might be afraid that the Senate action will catalyze a similar reform in the House, which could cut way back on his disposable family income.

But whatever the reason for his vote, Obama has screwed up.  The public will not take kindly to a senator who pledged to clean up the political process voting to allow wives to be hired with special-interest campaign funds.

The FEC required, in allowing the practice, that the contract for the services of the family member contain the language customarily used between campaign committees and consultants.  The FEC also ruled that any payment to a family member in excess of the fair market value of the services would be considered to be a “personal use of campaign funds.”

But, as usual, the FEC has missed the point. Any payment from campaign money to a spouse is, in fact, an appropriation of campaign funds by the member of Congress for his own personal use, however camouflaged or disguised. The Senate was right to ban the practice and the House should follow suit. "
http://www.dickmorris.com/

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2007-01-16T171913Z_01_N16195249_RTRUKOC_0_US-CRIME-UN.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

Mulled this over a few days before deciding to post.  Found it funny, still do but I have a 'Gary Larson' sense of humor which some may not appreciate.

Anyway this video is NOT PC, contains something OFFENSIVE to EVERYONE so if you're looking to get offended you've found heaven one click away.

For you real people, enjoy!!!         

---

"Spiders on Drugs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBbFc&eurl

 

Wow, I love bloodletting in the PARTY TERRORISTS OPENLY SUPPORTED. 

As the dust settles people will see exactly what comprises today's Democratic party ........... exactly what I've been posting on my blog .....  the far left socialist faction which hijacking the heart of it back in the early 90's has left the American people twisting in the wind for another round of Marxism redux.  Marxism never worked the past several implementations,  but they intend to try it one more time.

---

 

"THE COMING DEMOCRATIC PARTY CIVIL WAR

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

"January 11, 2006 -- Iraq is not the only place that is threatening to dissolve into the anarchy and bloodletting of a civil war.  It’s about to happen to the Democratic Party.  Reacting to Bush’s planned “surge” in troop strength, the Democratic leaders in Congress, savoring their victory, are contemplating taking only symbolic steps to protest Bush’s war policies, a timidity that will highly displease their leftist boosters.  The liberal activists who funded and impelled the Democratic victory in 2006 did not focus on winning a Congressional majority so that it would take merely symbolic action.  Symbolic action would have been appropriate for a minority party, but the backers of a party in the majority expect something more.
 
So the Democrats are about to form their customary firing squad – a circular one – and begin again the battles that ripped their party apart in the late 1960s.  The battle lines are the same:  The New Left vs. The Party Establishment.  Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are about to squander their credibility with their supporters on the left by failing to cut back – or cut off entirely – funding for the war.

The Democratic Party’s left wing is not to be trifled with.  It is a massive force, fully mobilized, and led by aggressive online organizations such as Moveon.org.  It has plenty of political leaders – like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry – who are more than willing to articulate fundamental differences with the Party’s Congressional leadership and are not shy about doing so.

The Congressional leaders’ plan is to give Bush all the rope he needs to hang himself by increasing troop strength in Iraq.  They are deeply skeptical about whether more soldiers will accomplish anything besides increasing casualties.  But they are not about to take the rap in front of the American people for seeming to sell out our troops by cutting their funding and forcing the Administration to retreat.  Nor are they ready for a constitutional confrontation with the Commander-in-Chief over his wartime powers.  So, instead, they are going to hold hearings during which a parade of former generals will voice their misgivings and air their disagreements, past and present.  It will be like one of Bob Woodward’s books enacted on a Congressional stage.

But this theater is not going to appease the left.  They did not elect Democrats to Congress so they could hold hearings.  They expect laws not shows.  Their frustration will become increasingly apparent as the Cindy Sheehans of the world react to the increased troop commitment in Baghdad.  The left will launch campaigns of civil disobedience, public marches and protests, online petitions, and the like.  It will be the 1960s all over again.

As long as the Democratic Party could be counted upon to represent the left on Iraq, protests against the war were channeled through the political process and were aimed at electing a Democratic Congress.  But now that the Democratic leadership has, in the eyes of the leaders of the left, “betrayed” them, look for protest to overflow the bounds of partisan politics and go into the streets.

One can expect candidates in the Democratic primaries to run to the left seeking to capitalize on the frustration of peace activists at the passivity of the Party’s Congressional leaders in the face of Bush’s determination to add to troop strength committed to Iraq.  Moderate candidates like Barak Obama, John Edwards, and even Hillary Clinton may find themselves outflanked by those more willing to run to the left like Al Gore and John Kerry. 

Until now, we have had a two-party system in our post 9-11 debates.  Now a new entrant is in the field: The New Left."

http://www.dickmorris.com/

 

"Barak Hussein Obama-Who is he?
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
December 29, 2006

After only being a U.S. Senator for a couple of years, Barak Hussein Obama, Democrat Senator from Chicago, has managed to catapult himself to the status of a messiah in the Democrat Party. The result is that, ever since, he's been walking on water toward the White House.

Obama says after his visit with friends and family in Hawaii during the 2006 year-end holidays, he'll announce if he's going to run for president in 2008.

Bets are that he will.

Who is Obama and what has he done?

Independent columnist, Andy Martin (Out2.com) says he believes Obama is a political fraud who "lied to the American people."

Martin says Obama may be a threat to the Jewish community because he is a closet Muslim.

"I feel sad having to expose Barack Obama," says Martin, "but the man is a complete fraud. The truth is going to surprise, and disappoint, and outrage many people who were drawn to him. He has lied to the American people, and he has sought to misrepresent his own heritage.

"Obama's life story is vastly different from the one he portrays. My point: if he will lie about his mother and father, what else is he lying about? Can we expect 'bimbo eruptions?'

"Fiction: Obama stated in his Convention speech: 'My father … grew up herding goats.' The 'goat herder' claim has been repeated endlessly. It is a lie.

"Fact: Obama's grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama was a prominent and wealthy farmer. His son, Obama's father, was a child of privilege, not privation. He was an outstanding student, not a herdsman.

"Fiction: Obama was given an 'African' name.

"Fact: Obama is a Muslim who has concealed his religion. I am a strong supporter of the Muslim community, and I believe Muslims have been scapegoated. Obama has a great opportunity to be forthright.

"Instead, he has treated his Muslim heritage as a dark secret. His grandfather was named 'Hussein.' That is an Arabic-Muslim, not African, name. Hussein was a devout Muslim and named his son, Barack Senior, 'Baraka.' Baraka is an Arabic word meaning 'blessed.' Baraka comes out of the Koran and Arabic, not Africa.

"Barack Senior was also a devoted Muslim, and also chose a Muslim name for his son, our own Barack Obama, Junior. Again, his name was an Arabic and Koranic.

"Fiction: Obama Senior was a harmless student 'immigrant' who came to the United States only to study.

"Fact: Obama was part of one of the most corrupt and violent organizations in Africa: the Kenyatta regime. Obama's father ran back to Kenya soon after the British left. It is likely Obama's father had Mau Mau sympathies or connections, or he would not have been welcomed into the murderous inner circle of rapists, murderers, and arsonists. I believe Obama's secret shame at his family history of rape, murder and arson is what actualizes him. Our research is not yet complete. We are seeking to examine British colonial records. Our investigation to date has drawn on information on three continents.

"And what about Obama's beloved Kenyan brothers and sisters? None of his family was invited to Boston to share his prominence. Are his relatives being kept in the closet? Where are they? More secrecy, more prevarication.

"It is time for Barack Obama to stop presenting a fantasy to the American people. We are forgiving and many would still support him. It may well be that his concealment is meant to endanger Israel. His Muslim religion would obviously raise serious questions in many Jewish circles where Obama now enjoys support," Martin said.

Debbie Schlussel, a conservative political commentator, columnist, was more pointedly critical about Obama's Islamic connections, she wrote on her blog, debbieschlussel.com/, "while Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that's not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it.

"In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not."

Is a man Muslims think is a Muslim, Schlussel asked on her blog, " a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

"Is that even the man we'd want to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, if Hillary Clinton offers him the Vice Presidential candidacy on her ticket (which he certainly wouldn't turn down)?"

Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of Barack Hussein Obama Sr. of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham, of Wichita, Kan.

Obama senior met his wife, a white woman, when he was a student attending the University of Hawaii. Obama junior was born in Hawaii.

When he was two-years old, Obama's parents divorced and his father returned to Kenya, where he eventually served as a senior economist in the country's Ministry of Finance.

When Obama was six, his mother, an atheist, married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim and moved to Jakarta, Indonesia. Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro was born after the family moved to Indonesia.

Soetoro enrolled his stepson in one of Jakarta's Muslim Wahabbi schools. Wahabbism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad on the rest of the world. Obama later attended a Catholic school in Indonesia.

At age 10 Obama was sent back to Hawaii to be raised by his white maternal grandparents and to attend the prestigious Punahou Academy.

He attended Occidental College, followed by Columbia College and Columbia University.

After Obama's parents divorced when he was two, he spent only one month with his father before his father's death in a vehicle wreck when Obama was 20.

After college, Obama entered Harvard Law where he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review. He received his law degree in 1991 and moved to Chicago where he took a job with a civil rights law firm.

Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996. He lost in a bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000 and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

Obama says he is a Christian with "deep faith rooted in the Christian tradition." He is a member of Trinity United Church of Christ of Chicago, which on its web site declares to be a "congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian" and "an African people" who "remain 'true to our native land,' the mother continent, the cradle of civilization."

Trinity United Church of Christ adopted a "Black Value System" which pledges allegiance "to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System" and a "personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System."

According to ontheissues.org, Obama has proven himself to be a nearly perfect leftist democrat. He is pro-abortion, anti-gun, against ban of same-sex marriage, against teaching family values in public schools, against ban of flag burning, against privatizing Social Security, against the death penalty and three strikes laws, for hiring more women and minorities, for increased funding for health care and for campaign finance reform.

He believes in the separation of church and state - except when he campaigns in black churches.

Who is Barak Hussein Obama?

Many Democrats are promoting him in the media as the Democrat's best hope for winning the White House in 2008.

Referring to Obama's 2006 year-end visit with friends and family in Hawaii, Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, recently stated: "He's going to make his decision here and announce it to us. Then he's probably going to officially announce his decision once he returns."

The Associated Press reported that Obama is expected back in Washington, DC the first week of January 2007."

http://www.usvetdsp.com/dec06/obama_muslim.htm

---

Source Debbie Schlussel

By Debbie Schlussel

"Many months ago, readers began asking me whether Barack Obama is Muslim. Since he identifies as a Christian, I said, "no," and responded that he was not raised by his Kenyan father.

But, then, I decided to look further into Obama's background. His full name--as by now you have probably heard--is Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Hussein is a Muslim name, which comes from the name of Ali's son--Hussein Ibn Ali. And Obama is named after his late Kenyan father, the late Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., apparently a Muslim.

And while Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that's not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it. In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not.

Then, there are the other items in his background. As best-selling author Scott Turow wrote in Salon, Obama went to a Muslim school for two years in Indonesia. His mother, Anna, married an Indonesian man (likely another Muslim, as Indonesia is Muslim-dominated and has the largest Islamic population in the world).

And Obama has a "born-again" affinity for the nation of his Muslim father, Kenya, and his Kenyan sister. (Although Kenya is largely Christian, it has a fast-growing Muslim population that has engaged in a good deal of religious violence and riots against Christians. And Kenyan courts will apply Sharia law, when the participants are Muslim.) Wrote Turow:

Obama's father died in a traffic accident in Nairobi in 1982, but while Obama was working in Chicago, he met his Kenyan sister, Auma, a linguist educated in Germany who was visiting the United States. When she returned to Kenya in 1986 to teach for a year at the University of Nairobi, Obama finally made the trip to his father's homeland he had long promised himself. There, he managed to fully embrace a heritage and a family he'd never fully known and come to terms with his father, whom he'd long regarded as an august foreign prince, but now realized was a human being burdened by his own illusions and vulnerabilities.

So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

Is that even the man we'd want to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, if Hillary Clinton offers him the Vice Presidential candidacy on her ticket (which he certainly wouldn't turn down)?

NO WAY, JOSE . . . Or, is that, HUSSEIN? "

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2006/12/barack_hussein.html

"TAKING DAY OFF FOR FOOTBALL COSTS DEMS CREDIBILITY

By DICK MORRIS

Source email from http://www.dickmorris.com/

January 10, 2006 -- House Democrats lost considerable credibility yesterday when their opening session was cancelled so that members could attend the Ohio State-Florida State football game.

This is not a joke.

It is, however, a blunt metaphor for how genuinely out of touch the members of Congress really are. How many other Americans do you suppose were given the same perk? A day off because of an evening football game? And how many school kids would like to have time off to watch their own favorite teams? What kind of message is the House leadership sending?

Is it that they don’t get how bad it looks, or that they don’t care?

Their record has been dismal. Last year, the House and Senate worked an average of about two days a week for their salary of $162,500. Nice work if you can find it. Responding to well-deserved criticisms, the new House majority leader, Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), with great fanfare, promised a five-day work week. But that was just talk. When it was the Republicans who were scheduling the eight-day month, Hoyer was outraged. But now that the Democrats control the calendar, he considers a football game to be a legitimate excuse for a vacation day. As he said in reference to the new House minority leader, John Boehner (R-Ohio), “There is a very important event happening Monday night, particularly for those who live in Ohio and Florida. In the spirit of comity, and I know if Maryland were playing, I would want to be accommodated, and I want to accommodate my friend, Mr. Boehner.”

Apparently Mr. Hoyer is not familiar with the disdain that American voters feel for members of Congress. A mid-December Gallup poll showed that 74 percent of Americans disapproved of the job that Congress was doing. Hoyer is certainly doing his best to keep those negative poll numbers.

And there won’t be a five-day work week at all in January. The Martin Luther King holiday falls next week and the Democrats and Republicans are holding respective retreats during the following two weeks. The Democrats are planning a day of speeches in two weeks, including one by Bill Clinton. Hey folks, ever think about doing this on a weekend?

So the promised “five-day” work week starts on Tuesday at 6:30 and ends at about 2 on Friday — more like a two-and-a-half-day work week.

And that might not even happen if there’s another important football game.

Meanwhile in the Senate, while Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) fight for an independent watchdog to enforce lobbying laws, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) insists that hearings must first be held on the issue. This is hardly a new idea. It’s been proposed for years and makes sense. We’ve seen how little policing of lobbyists has been done — witness Jack Abramoff and his cohorts. Requiring hearings is just another stalling tactic. And, in any event, Reid is the last person who should be in charge of designing the self-policing of lobbyists. For years, his three sons and son-in-law made millions by lobbying for Nevada interests — often working out of his Senate office. Only when the press called attention to the practice did Reid bar the boys. Talk about the goats guarding the garbage! Sen. Obama spoke of “institutional resistance” to the watchdog provisions. That institutional r
 esistance has led to serious lobbying transgressions that must be stopped.

If the Democrats want to stay in power, and if Congress wants to win the support and trust of the American people, they’d better start thinking about how their actions resonate with the average voter. Looks like it’s already time for new Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to use her “mother-of-five voice” and turn things around in the House. As for the Senate, let’s hope the new members speak out and force real and necessary reforms. This time the country is watching. "

Spinning the radio dial the other night I stopped briefly to listen to Michael Savage where he made a very compelling argument..... creating fear in a population allows it to be controlled by those who say they have all the an$$$wers.  Follow the money trail whether it's higher taxes or industries set to be spawned by those agendas. 

---

"The Sun is More Active Now than Over the Last 8000 Years

Source Max Planck Institute

Quoted from SpaceRef.com

"An international team of scientists has reconstructed the Sun's activity over the last 11 millennia and forecasts decreased activity within a few decades.

The activity of the Sun over the last 11,400 years, i.e., back to the end of the last ice age on Earth, has now for the first time been reconstructed quantitatively by an international group of researchers led by Sami K. Solanki from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany). The scientists have analyzed the radioactive isotopes in trees that lived thousands of years ago. As the scientists from Germany, Finland, and Switzerland report in the current issue of the science journal "Nature" from October 28, one needs to go back over 8,000 years in order to find a time when the Sun was, on average, as active as in the last 60 years. Based on a statistical study of earlier periods of increased solar activity, the researchers predict that the current level of high solar activity will probably continue only for a few more decades.

The research team had already in 2003 found evidence that the Sun is more active now than in the previous 1000 years. A new data set has allowed them to extend the length of the studied period of time to 11,400 years, so that the whole length of time since the last ice age could be covered. This study showed that the current episode of high solar activity since about the year 1940 is unique within the last 8000 years. This means that the Sun has produced more sunspots, but also more flares and eruptions, which eject huge gas clouds into space, than in the past. The origin and energy source of all these phenomena is the Sun's magnetic field.

Since the invention of the telescope in the early 17th century, astronomers have observed sunspots on a regular basis. These are regions on the solar surface where the energy supply from the solar interior is reduced owing to the strong magnetic fields that they harbour. As a consequence, sunspots are cooler by about 1,500 degrees and appear dark in comparison to their non-magnetic surroundings at an average temperature of 5,800 degrees. The number of sunspots visible on the solar surface varies with the 11-year activity cycle of the Sun, which is modulated by long-term variations. For example, there were almost no sunspots seen during the second half of the 17th century.

For many studies concerning the origin of solar activity and its potential effect on long-term variations of Earth's climate, the interval of time since the year 1610, for which systematic records of sunspots exist, is much too short. For earlier times the level of solar activity must be derived from other data. Such information is stored on Earth in the form of "cosmogenic" isotopes. These are radioactive nuclei resulting from collisions of energetic cosmic ray particles with air molecules in the upper atmosphere. One of these isotopes is C-14, radioactive carbon with a half life of 5730 years, which is well known from the C-14 method to determine the age of wooden objects. The amount of C-14 produced depends strongly on the number of cosmic ray particles that reach the atmosphere. This number, in turn, varies with the level of solar activity: during times of high activity, the solar magnetic field provides an effective shield against these energetic particles, while the intensity of the cosmic rays increases when the activity is low. Therefore, higher solar activity leads to a lower production rate of C-14, and vice versa.

By mixing processes in the atmosphere, the C-14 produced by cosmic rays reaches the biosphere and part of it is incorporated in the biomass of trees. Some tree trunks can be recovered from below the ground thousands of years after their death and the content of C-14 stored in their tree rings can be measured. The year in which the C-14 had been incorporated is determined by comparing different trees with overlapping life spans. In this way, one can measure the production rate of C-14 backward in time over 11,400 years, right to the end of the last ice age. The research group have used these data to calculate the variation of the number of sunspots over these 11,400 years. The number of sunspots is a good measure also for the strength of the various other phenomena of solar activity.

The method of reconstructing solar activity in the past, which describes each link in the complex chain connecting the isotope abundances with the sunspot number with consistent quantitative physical models, has been tested and gauged by comparing the historical record of directly measured sunspot numbers with earlier shorter reconstructions on the basis of the cosmogenic isotope Be-10 in the polar ice shields. The models concern the production of the isotopes by cosmic rays, the modulation of the cosmic ray flux by the interplanetary magnetic field (the open solar magnetic flux), as well as the relation between the large-scale solar magnetic field and the sunspot number. In this way, for the first time a quantitatively reliable reconstruction of the sunspot number for the whole time since the end of the last ice age could be obtained.

Because the brightness of the Sun varies slightly with solar activity, the new reconstruction indicates also that the Sun shines somewhat brighter today than in the 8,000 years before. Whether this effect could have provided a significant contribution to the global warming of the Earth during the last century is an open question. The researchers around Sami K. Solanki stress the fact that solar activity has remained on a roughly constant (high) level since about 1980 - apart from the variations due to the 11-year cycle - while the global temperature has experienced a strong further increase during that time. On the other hand, the rather similar trends of solar activity and terrestrial temperature during the last centuries (with the notable exception of the last 20 years) indicates that the relation between the Sun and climate remains a challenge for further research. "

Original work:

Sami K. Solanki, Ilya G. Usoskin, Bernd Kromer, Manfred Schüssler, Jürg Beer
Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years
Nature, 28 October 2004

Ilya G. Usoskin, Sami K. Solanki, Manfred Schüssler, Kalevi Mursula, Katja Alanko
A Millenium Scale Sunspot Reconstruction: Evidence For an Unusually Active Sun Since the 1940s
Physical Review Letters, 91, 211101 (1993)

Sami K. Solanki, Natalie A. Krivova
Can solar variability explain solar warming since 1970?
Journal of Geophysical Research,108, doi 10.1029/2002JA009753 (2003) "
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=15385

Linked from my Silva Newsletter....... a bit of inspiration for today. 

---

"Thoughts Become Things!
a Speech by Mike Dooley

http://www.mindhacks.org/2007/01/10/thoughts-become-things/

 

posted by konane  # 10:17 AM 0 comments

Another "do as I say, not as I do."

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Believe I read we have an increased presence in the Gulf.  China takes care of Kim Jong, we took care of Saddam, Israel takes care of Iran.  Works for me.

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Powerlineblog.com comments:

"..................The Times' article purports to be based on information from Israeli and American sources. So the obvious question is, what lies behind the apparent leaks? Are they sanctioned by the Israeli government, perhaps with a view toward deterring Iran's further weapons development? Do they come from renegade sources who want pressure brought to bear on the Israelis not to carry out a military mission? Or are the leaks some other kind of misdirection intended to confuse Iran?

I have absolutely no idea. But the Israeli sources quoted by the Times say that the Mossad believes Iran may have nuclear weapons within two years. So events may be moving toward a crisis. "

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016418.php

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"Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran
Uzi Mahnaimi, New York and Sarah Baxter, Washington

Source TimesOnLine.co.uk

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.
Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear "bunker-busters", according to several Israeli military sources.

The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.

Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open "tunnels" into the targets. "Mini-nukes" would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.

"As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished," said one of the sources.

The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad's assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.

Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.

Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.

Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world.

Israel has identified three prime targets south of Tehran which are believed to be involved in Iran's nuclear programme:

Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges are being installed for uranium enrichment

A uranium conversion facility near Isfahan where, according to a statement by an Iranian vice-president last week, 250 tons of gas for the enrichment process have been stored in tunnels

A heavy water reactor at Arak, which may in future produce enough plutonium for a bomb
Israeli officials believe that destroying all three sites would delay Iran's nuclear programme indefinitely and prevent them from having to live in fear of a "second Holocaust".

The Israeli government has warned repeatedly that it will never allow nuclear weapons to be made in Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has declared that "Israel must be wiped off the map". ............."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2535310,00.html 

If Dick Morris doesn't know her, who does??

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"IS HILLARY SHOWING HER AGE?

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

January 5, 2006 -- The smartest thing George W. Bush did as he pursued the presidency in 2000 was to jettison his father's former campaign team and start his own bid for the White House from scratch. He realized that times had changed in the 12 years that had elapsed since his Dad was elected, and that the old guard would be set in the old ways. So, he reached out for new people with new ideas — people Dad hadn't known well back in 1988, like Karl Rove and Karen Hughes — to pilot him to victory in 2000.

But that's not the model that the next heir apparent has chosen.

Hillary Clinton now seems wed not just to the 1992 candidate himself, but to his staff, advisors, supporters, tactics, strategy, and timing as well. As this nearly 60 year old candidate faces younger and savvy challengers in Barak Obama, 45, and John Edwards, 53, she seems to be showing her age rather than grasping just how much the political world has changed since she last trod the presidential campaign trail.

According to recent news articles, she apparently seemed genuinely surprised that the 2008 presidential race has heated up so early. (Wake up Hillary!) Evidently, she's been grousing to potential supporters that she doesn't understand why she can't follow the more leisurely schedule her husband first pursued, when he waited to announce his candidacy until the fall of 1991. Her plan was to do the same thing. Now, with the increasing strength of Edwards and Obama, she's being forced to get into the race and compete. This was something that she hadn't planned on; not at all.

With Hillary's coy insistence for the past year that she hadn't made up her mind about whether to run for president, she could hardly start publicly campaigning. But while she was playing dumb about her candidacy, Edwards was cleverly and effectively building the support of Democrats in Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire — the early primary states. Now Edwards is in first place in Iowa and Hillary is in fourth. He's tirelessly crisscrossing the state. She hasn't been there in years. There's a lesson there.

Hillary appears to have been completely taken by surprise by the boomlet for Obama. He's now tied with her in New Hampshire and ahead of her in Iowa. The Obama phenomenon quickly knocked her out of her complacency. Suddenly, just days after the New York Senate election, she began to frantically invite prominent Democratic Party types from Iowa and New Hampshire to her home for dinner to discuss her 'potential' presidential race. Using her BlackBerry — or more likely the old Clinton Rolodex, — she contacted the party hacks from 10 years ago…the people who supported Bill back then. It's been a long time since she last visited New Hampshire, and she hasn't kept up with the changes in the Party. She's relying on the outdated Clinton contacts, even ignoring the first female Speaker of the House, who was also the first Democrat elected Speaker in 70 years. That's someone to pay attention to.

Everything about the Hillary operation looks a bit out of date. Most of her advisors are the same retreads the Clintons have always used. They resemble nothing so much as the aging Camelot crowd that surrounded JFK and Bobby, and reassembled tiredly to help Teddy mess up his race in 1980.

The top echelon of Hillary's brain trust is the same old White House gang that advised them many years ago. As part of her offense after the election, Hillary even had a highly publicized dinner with former advisers James Carville and Paul Begala (wonder how the press ever learned of that rendezvous). Their last presidential campaign was Bill Clinton's 1992 race 14 years ago — hardly the place to go for cutting edge political advice. Even the Clintons declined to hire that undynamic duo for the 1996 race or for either of Hillary's Senate race. Gore ignored them in 2000 and Kerry refused to hire them in 2004. Hillary won't hire them either, but she still looks backward. Maybe the nostalgia is comforting to her.

It's déjà vu all over again.

Hillary's tactics are also old. She spent much of her $40 million campaign war chest in her 2006 run for a second term in New York building her direct mail list. Direct mail? Hello?? Ever heard of the Internet? No up-front costs, no turnaround time, rapid contacting, etc.

And last year, Hillary quaintly called for a post card writing campaign to lobby for maintaining Homeland Security funding levels in New York. Again, ever heard of the Internet, Hillary? Post card campaigns went out with the mimeograph machine.

Sen. Clinton reportedly hopes that her meetings and the discussions about her candidacy will remain secret, drawing around herself the same veil of privacy she used to shroud the operations of the White House Health Care Task Force from public view in 1993. Hey, wake up! Those days are over. Nothing in a presidential race is kept secret.

Today's politics is a whole new world. Money is raised by the bushel and, as a result, is no longer as decisive. Events happen faster. People seek out candidates before they have the time to reveal themselves to the voters. A candidate herself, actually, controls only about a quarter to a third of her own campaign. Bloggers, Internet e-mailers, independent expenditures, party committees, eager contributors and special interests run the rest for her. She can't keep track of her own campaign, let alone control it.

Unless Mrs. Clinton takes a crash course in the new politics, she's not going anywhere. These old days are over, Hillary. "

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Reuter's "Green Helmet Guy made it to Wilkipedia.      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Helmet_Guy

 

Found that via this  .............

"Carroll: How Dare You Question Our Reporting Source

Well, the Iraqi Ministry has a rule about police talking to the press, not bloggers in America (and he never spoke with any of us or any other news organization - just the AP.) And since it was the AP that revealed his name (three different versions of it, actually) in their reporting, Carroll's ire is hilariously misplaced here. His full name is provided in an AP article here, as is the evidence that the AP has repeatedly published this guy's name - in their own ink.

In the meantime, there is still the little matter of sorting through and nailing the AP for changing its stories by Hussein constantly, quietly and significantly until those new stories on the wires barely resemble the original stories. Still no comment from the Carroll regarding this. You can read 40 of those stories here, with some questions about each one.   ..........."

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/185941.php

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/ 

"The AP's Jamil Hussein Scandal
Controversy Will Haunt the AP Until It Does What is Right
By EASON JORDAN Posted 18 hr. 12 min. ago
Source IraqSlogger.com

"If an Iraqi police captain by the name of Jamil Hussein exists, there is no convincing evidence of it - and that means the Associated Press has a journalistic scandal on its hands that will fester until the AP deals with it properly.
This controversy and the AP's handling of it call into question the credibility, integrity, and smarts of one of the world's biggest, most influential, most respected news organizations, the New York-based Associated Press.

The back story: On November 24, the AP quoted Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Hussein as the source of a sensational AP story that began this way:

"Militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive as Iraqi soldiers stood by."
It was a horrific report that was an AP exclusive - a story picked up and reported by news outlets across the U.S. and the world.

The U.S. military and Iraqi officials were quick to call the story baseless, saying there was no evidence that six Sunnis were burned to death in Hurriya and that there was no record of an Iraqi police captain named Jamil Hussein. The U.S. military and the Iraqi government demanded the AP retract the story and explain itself.

The AP fired back with at least three strong statements defending the initial AP report and provided a follow-up report from Baghdad quoting anonymous witnesses as confirming the original immolation story.

In the absence of irrefutable evidence that Captain Hussein exists and that the original AP report was accurate, bloggers and a few mainstream media journalists kept plugging away in an effort to get to the truth about whether there is a Captain Hussein and whether six Sunnis were burned alive that day.

Five weeks after the disputed episode, key questions remain unanswered, but what is clear is the AP has botched its handling of this controversy - and it's not going away until the AP deals with it forthrightly and transparently.

IraqSlogger's probe into the case is inconclusive, with conflicting and unconfirmed information regarding whether there's a Captain Hussein and whether the reported immolation happened.

Inquiries by others point to there being no Captain Jamil Hussein, although there is no proof of that.

While proof might yet surface to substantiate the AP's story - there is circumstantial but unreliable evidence in that regard - conclusive evidence has not yet materialized.

The AP has steadfastly refused to answer questions about this episode from IraqSlogger and other news outlets and bloggers.

In statements, the AP insists Captain Hussein is real, insists he has been known to the AP and others for years, and insists the immolation episode occurred based on multiple eyewitnesses.

But efforts by two governments, several news organizations, and bloggers have failed to produce such evidence or proof that there is a Captain Jamil Hussein. The AP cannot or will not produce him or convincing evidence of his existence.

It is striking that no one has been able to find a family member, friend, or colleague of Captain Hussein. Nor has the AP told us who in the AP's ranks has actually spoken with Captain Hussein. Nor has the AP quoted Captain Hussein once since the story of the disputed episode.

Therefore, in the absence of clear and compelling evidence to corroborate the AP's exclusive story and Captain Hussein's existence, we must conclude for now that the AP's reporting in this case was flawed.

To make matters worse, Captain Jamil Hussein was a key named source in more than 60 AP stories on at least 25 supposed violent incidents over eight months.

Until this controversy is resolved, every one of those AP reports is tainted.

When two governments challenge the veracity of your reporting, when there are reasonable doubts about whether your prime named source for a sensational exclusive story exists, when there's no proof a reported horrific incident occurred, when the news outlet responsible for the disputed report stonewalls and is stridently defensive, when the validity of dozens of other of your reports has been called into question as a result, then that news organization has a scandal on its hands, and that is where the AP finds itself.

Having learned from my own successes and failures and those of others, I know that a journalistic scandal can be handled effectively only when the news organization's management deals with it proactively, constructively, and transparently, with a readiness to admit any mistake, to apologize for it, and to take appropriate corrective action.

The AP has failed to do so in this case.

I, therefore, urge the AP to appoint an independent panel to determine the facts about the disputed report, to determine whether Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Hussein exists, and to share the panel's full findings and recommendations with the public.

Until this matter is resolved, the AP's credibility will suffer.

Meantime, IraqSlogger and others will doggedly pursue the truth in this case."

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/486/The_APs_Jamil_Hussein_Scandal

 "Conservatives Push for Counter-Terror Divestment
By Nathan Burchfiel
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
January 02, 2007

"(CNSNews.com) - The United Nations Security Council has voted to impose sanctions on Iranian nuclear and missile programs, but some American conservatives argue that U.S. state governments can have a greater impact on Tehran's nuclear activities by pulling money out of companies that do business with the terror-sponsoring nation.

"Security Council sanctions on Iran are virtually useless, they're so watered down," Christopher Holton told Cybercast News Service on Friday.

"Iran's revenue stream from various economic activities, especially oil and gas, enables it to have those programs and there's been nothing done to put any pressure on Iran to ... in terms of economic sanctions, which is really what needs to be done."

Holton is the Director of DivestTerror.org, a project of the conservative Center for Security Policy that urges U.S. public pension systems to divest from companies that do business in terrorist-sponsoring nations.

"What the effect of the Divest Terror initiative would be would be far more comprehensive than anything that the U.N. Security Council came up with," Holton said.

Holton said many pensioners do not realize that their money is invested in companies that do business in nations recognized by the U.S. State Department as state sponsors of terror.

"U.S. investors in general are heavily invested in foreign companies that do business with our enemies," he said. "Iran is the world's foremost sponsor of jihadist terrorism."

According to a 2004 Divest Terror report, the top 100 public pension systems in the United States invest more than $188 billion in countries listed as state sponsors of terrorism.

The average top pension systems invests in 73 companies doing business in Iran, 26 companies doing business in Sudan, 31 doing business in Syria, nine doing business in North Korea, and 24 doing business in Libya, which was removed the state sponsors of terror list in May 2006.

Divest Terror says public pension systems should require companies that operate in terror-sponsoring nations to make a choice "between doing business with the American people and capital markets on the one hand or, alternatively, doing business with terrorists' friends and this country's enemies."

Among the 12 companies that do the most business in terrorist-sponsoring countries - dubbed "the dirty dozen" by DivestTerror.org - are German telecommunications giant Siemens AG and South Korean automaker Hyundai.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia are listed on the report has having pension systems invested in companies that do business with terror-sponsoring nations. But since the report's release in 2004, at least a few states have taken steps to divest.

Efforts to Divest

In 2005, Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman began efforts to divest that state's money from companies doing business with terror-sponsoring nations, including the New York Branch of Arab Bank, which in August was fined $24 million by the U.S. Treasury after an investigation into money laundering and financial support of terrorist groups.

In July 2005, Steelman successfully changed Missouri investment policy to prohibit investments in such companies.

The policy now says that the state "seeks to promote and support the objectives of U.S. foreign policy regarding terrorism. Accordingly, investments in companies ... that are known to sponsor terrorism or aid the government in countries that are known to sponsor terrorism are prohibited."

In July 2005, the Swiss America Trading Corporation launched "Operation Divest Terror," a program that allows investors to check their holdings against a list of companies known to do business with terrorists or state sponsors of terrorism.

The corporation checks clients' investments against a list of companies connected to terrorism provided by the Conflict Securities Advisory Group, which says there are "about 400 U.S. and foreign publicly traded companies that have business activities in or with terrorist-sponsoring states."

Investment in terrorism-sponsored companies or governments was even an issue in the 2006 midterm election campaign. In his unsuccessful bid to keep his Senate seat, Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum accused his Democratic challenger, then-State Treasurer Bob Casey, of allowing Pennsylvania pension funds to invest in companies linked to terrorism.

Santorum accused Casey of "aiding and abetting terrorism and genocide," a charge Casey said reflected "a really desperate campaign." "

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200701/POL20070102a.html

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http://divestterror.org/dirtydozen.html

Downloaded this via Kim Komando newsletter.  Works on blog comments, also when posting with Firefox or other browser that LP spell checker doesn't work with.

This version totally FREE.  Haven't had any spyware or spam problems since downloading it about a month ago.

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tinySpell 1.5 - a tiny spell checker for Windows

http://www.tinyspell.m6.net/