Like I couldn't have guessed it

I was shocked -- SHOCKED -- to find out that Leftists are behind the big push for Net Neutrality. [/sarcasm]

Documents made public yesterday by Judicial Watch describe extensive collusion by Federal Communications Commission officials with a left-wing advocacy group in a campaign to expand government regulation of the Internet.

The documents, obtained by Judicial Watch in a December 2010 Freedom of Information Act request, were created after Democrat appointees solidified their 3-2 control of the agency in March 2009.

The coordination between FCC officials and Free Press, the advocacy group, supported a proposal for the agency to regulate access to the Internet as if it were a public utility, in the interest of ensuring "Net Neutrality."

Proponents said doing so would assure equal access for all Internet users by barring companies from offering preferred rates for higher delivery speeds. Other users, especially in communities with limited Internet access, would be forced to accept poorer service.

But critics said the proposal would actually give the FCC a tool to regulate content, and they argued that the FCC has no authority over the medium in the first place. It would be akin to forcing FedEx and UPS to treat all packages the same way the U.S. Postal Service does.

Anyone with half a brain knows that (1) any effort to regulate the interwebs, regardless of stated purpose, is an attempt to regulate content, and (2) Leftists are the primary movers and shakers behind any effort to restrict speech.

Next thing you know someone will report that Leftists are behind efforts to ban handguns, or some other piece of obvious information.

Disregarding the people's wishes

xfloggingkylex sent me this via email.

Link

This is a pretty interesting read, especially since Oct 1 these laws go into effect in MD. Looks to me like government doing what it does, a view that contradicts their views gets presented and is then criticized, and government keeps on doing its thing. I can't believe the guy is calling the study flawed just because it goes against his campaign... actually I can.

xfloggingkylex is absolutely right: this is government being government.

Are texting bans working?

Road deaths due to texting behind the wheel, a topic widely reported on in recent months, has taken a new twist.

In a report released Tuesday, the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, found that texting bans are not reducing crashes.

The claims that the anti-texting laws do not reduce crashes touched a nerve with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, who responded harshly to the report, calling it misleading and flawed.

“Last Thursday, I blogged about misleading claims from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) disparaging the effectiveness of good laws and good enforcement in our campaign to end distracted driving,” LaHood wrote in his blog “The FastLane,” this morning. “Unfortunately, they're at it again today with another misleading ‘study,’ ” LaHood continued. “There are numerous flaws with this ‘study,’ but the most obvious is that they have created a cause and effect that simply doesn't exist.”

The question needs to be asked: WHO is it who has "created a cause and effect that simply doesn't exist"?  Seems to me that it's the folks seeking to ban text messaging and to force the use of hands-free devices in order to use your cell phone in the car who have done so, NOT the IHS.  The nanny state WILL tell us how to behave, and we WILL like it!

But that's just Vulture being Vulture.

Cleared of all wrongdoing [/sarcasm]

The search for truth being a relative thing, we can certainly take it as settled fact when the University of East Anglia proclaims that its investigation of....uh....itself....uncovered no wrongdoing of any kind.

Emails stolen from one of the world's leading climate change research centers contained no evidence to undermine the case for manmade global warming, a report found on Wednesday.

An investigation into the British research unit cleared its scientists of serious wrongdoing, but criticized their lack of openness and said some of their data was misleading.

The University of East Anglia, eastern England, launched the inquiry after 1,000 emails hacked from its climate research unit were put on the Internet and held up as evidence scientists had exaggerated or lied about man's role in global warming.

Just like Penn State University in its investigation of....uh....itself....found nothing amiss.

Nothing to see here people.  Move along.

Not all of us are persuaded.

Russell was appointed by the institution to investigate an archive of source code and emails that leaked onto the internet last November. The source code is not addressed at all. His report suggests that the problems were of the academics' own making, stating that they were "united in defence against criticism". Yet the enquiry found that despite emails promising to "redefine" the peer review publication process, and put pressure on journal editors, staff were not guilty of subverting the IPCC process, and their "rigour" and "honesty" were beyond question.

Leading academics were called for written and oral evidence before the Russell enquiry, and in many cases the report accepts their account of events. The subjects of their criticism were not invited, not were climate scientists critical of their behaviour. For example, in their capacity as IPCC gatekeepers, the academics are cleared of excluding critical evidence, and yet bending the rules to include supporting studies. To reach this particular conclusion, for example, the report finds a criterion: a "consistence of view" with earlier work. The earlier work here was in fact produced [by] the academics under scrutiny. So, having compared the CRU academics' work against their previous work, and found it to be consistent, they are cleared of malpractice.

Let me summarize. Because the results produced in the time frame under investigation matched the results of earlier work produced by....uh....the people under investigation....nothing untoward has occurred.

Nothing to see here people.  Move along.

Now let me speak honestly, from the heart.  The source code matters.  Michael Mann's discredited "hockey stick" program would produce the same result whether you fed it temperature data or the price list from Wendy's.  It skewed older numbers to a pattern of a slow, gradual increase, and completely distorted numbers at the tail end of the dataset to sky upward at an exponential rate that is ridiculous on its face and should have caught SOMEONE'S attention from the very beginning.

What's in the source code at East Anglia?  Are we dealing with the same kind of intellectual dishonesty as that shown by Mr. Mann?

Talk of "tricks" and "hide the decline" matter.  When one speaks of "cheating on my spouse" you don't assume it involves a card game.  Someone with a little more intellectual honesty (and no connection to either the University or any government bureaucracy) needs to look into what their little "tricks" were.

Though concern was voiced over the refusal of the scientists to share their "data" (I use the term loosely - fictitious bullshit is the more appropriate term) with independent scientists so they might independently validate their findings, this too matters much more than the sham investigation weighs it.  The fact that in one of the emails a scientist said that he would DESTROY the data before he would share it with an outsider is GARGANTUAN.  This is not something to be brushed under the rug or treated with a slap on the wrist.  You don't hide your data unless you know that it's corrupt, has been falsified, or is total fiction.

The bullying of scientific journals to prevent publication of opposing viewpoints matters.  If science is, as so many of its proponents claim, a search for the truth, then let opposing voices be heard!  These scientists weren't acting as seekers of the truth by throwing their weight around in this way.  They were acting as ideological thugs.

I'm tired of the dishonesty.  I'm tired of this ideology-tainted pseudo-science serving no other purpose than to further political schemes to increase taxation on and control over formerly free peoples.

My brother is right - this planet IS the insane asylum for the entire universe.

Update:

Check out this column for a scathing review of East Anglia's "finding".

Vulture Droppings: Health in the balance

Vulture Droppings is a semi-regular feature of this blog. It's a kind of "Random Thoughts" post in which I try to quickly summarize a particularly large event or series of events. Think of it being sort of like what a vulture leaves behind after devouring a horse. You don't get the whole horse, just highly processed leftovers.

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As I write this, the hinges are being torn off of the gates and the barbarians are storming the Bastille.  No, wait, that's what we have to look forward to in about 10 years.   Right now, our Noblesse Oblige government is going through the motions of a parliamentary ritual designed to fool the sheeple by giving them the impression that the process is on the up-and-up.  Hint: it isn't.

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Here is the latest.  The House will vote on the original Senate Health Care Reform Bill Takeover Bill as-is.  This bill includes the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kick-back, and other bribes yet to gain the infamy of those first two.

The House Pro-Life Democrats have been assured that no federal abortion funding will be part of the legislation...even though the bill specifically mandates it...because Il Duce promised to sign an Excecutive Order prohibiting federal spending on abortions as part of the Health Care bill, thus proving, as we have long suspected, that Rex est Lex in the Obama administration.

There are problems with that little scheme.

1. There's no Constitutional provision for such an action.
2. The President doesn't hold the keys to the national purse.  Congress does.
3. Why do we even BOTHER with a legislature if Il Duce can simply sign a paper and - voila! - it is law?

Then, once that steaming abortion of Legislative assault against what was once a free, sovereign people, has passed, the House will vote on the "corrections" to that legislation - the Reconciliation.  After all, they had to shine that turd and make it nice and pretty for the folks back home serfs so that they will have some prayer of being re-elected.  Once the steaming Fascist takeover bill has passed, the Reconciliation bill has passed, and Il Duce has signed his little Executive Order and the Legislation itself, there will be dancing in the streets.  Yeah......dancing.

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There's just one itsy-bitsy problem with that scenario.  It's illegal.  The "Limitation of Changes to Social Security Act" of 1985 prohibits Reconciliation for any bill that impacts Social Security funds.

What does that mean?  It means that we've been presented with a bait-and-switch.  What we'll be left with when all is said and done is the Senate bill, complete with the Louisiana Purchase, etc.  And, knowing Il Duce as we do, who's to say that he won't go back on his dubious Executive Order once the Reconciliation Bill hits the fan?

It's the worst possible scenario.  It's a horrendous bill that make health care worse and cedes individual freedoms to the complete control of government bureaucrats.  With the passage of the Senate Bill, we will have officially made the transition from citizens to serfs.

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Fortunately, it's not really over once the legislation has passed.  As I posted a few days ago, Idaho, Virginia, and perhaps as many as 35 other states plan to sue the Federal Government on the grounds that several provisions of the legislation are unconstitutional.  Several?  Try the whole steaming mess!

Whatever.  As long as there is some hope that this corrupt, freedom-ending nightmare can be shot down, there is still hope.  But I wouldn't get too exited about those prospects.  Remember, one of the key bribery tools in Il Duce's bag of dirty tricks is the appointment of Federal judges.  I'll be amazed if this hostile take-over is interrupted, rolled-back, or otherwise deterred in any meaningful way.

Welcome to Amerika!  Now take a number.  You might get sick soon.

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Is The Vulture irresponsible?

Notwithstanding that the question can be answered in the affirmative regarding SOME aspects of my life, I think, on balance, I'm a fairly responsible person. I mean, if there's a stream of f-bombs emanating from my work area, you can be sure I'm responsible.

[Cue rimshot]

All joking aside, I'm a little taken aback at being accused of irresponsible behavior by a spokespuke from the World Health Organization for simply speaking my mind on the farce that is the attempted fear mongering of that organization and a number of national government organs regarding the H1N1 virus.

The World Health Organization on Monday slammed as "irresponsible" critics who claim swine flu is a fake pandemic created for the benefit of drug companies.

The U.N. health agency said the outbreak of a new strain of H1N1 influenza in North America last year had all the scientific characteristics of a pandemic, adding the WHO was never improperly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry that has benefited from huge government orders for vaccines and anti-viral drugs.

"The world is going through a real pandemic. The description of it as a fake is wrong and irresponsible," the WHO said in a strongly worded statement Monday.

A WHO spokesman declined to spell out who the World Health Organization was responding to in its statement, saying only that "this applies to anyone who believes it is not a real pandemic."

I'm so hurt! [/sarcasm]

Lest you succumb to the temptation to fall for the spokesmonkey's rhetoric, let me show you some numbers -- THEIR numbers -- on the "toll" of this "pandemic".

According to a WHO tally dated Jan. 17, more than 209 countries and territories have reported laboratory confirmed cases of swine flu, including at least 14,142 deaths. This is far fewer than would be expected to die each year from seasonal flu, but the figure is likely to exclude many unreported cases, according to WHO.

So, we have a "pandemic" that doesn't even rise to the level of a "normal" flu season...and we who are simply pointing out this fact are the "irresponsible" ones. Riiiiiiiiiight.

Welcome to the surreal world of the One World Socialist Utopia dimwit bureaucrat.

Photo Op

The perpetually tone-deaf administration of King Barack of KenyaHawaii, Lord of Savior of Big Media (the BM for short), has done it again.

A jumbo jet being chased by F-16 fighter jets buzzed Lower Manhattan this morning, panicking New Yorkers, many of whom were forced to evacuate their office buildings.

It was not a terrorist attack, however, but a photo opportunity for Air Force One, sources told the Post.

President Obama was in Washington at the time, but the low-flying 747 circling the Statue of Liberty was one of the planes used as Air Force One, sources said.

The NYPD and the city were notified of the planned flight, but did not share that information with Mayor Bloomberg and other New Yorkers, many of whom said they were terrified.

Gee, King Barack. It didn't occur to any of the rocket scientists in your administration that a 747 being pursued by an F-16 fighter jet near ground-effing-zero might cause just a WEE bit of panic?

Naturally, a low-level functionary in the administration fell on his sword to take blame for the debacle.

A White House official is taking responsibility for a Boeing 747's flying photo op over New York City that sent some workers in lower Manhattan into a panic. The plane is a version of the 747 that's called Air Force One when the president is aboard.

White House military office director Louis Caldera says federal officials notified local and state authorities in New York and New Jersey, but he also apologized in a statement on Monday for the confusion and disruption.

And, just as naturally, King Barack was as clueless as Sgt. Shultz.

Obama said he wasn’t informed in advance of yesterday’s low-altitude flight over New York Harbor, which rattled windows in New York’s financial district and prompted some office workers to flee buildings in fear it was a terrorist attack.

The FAA knew about the photo op. But, in typical bureaucratic arrogance, insisted on secrecy.

Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.

In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD the Federal Aviation Administration's James Johnston said the agency was aware of "the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes" in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor's office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out.

Okay, let's take King Barack at his word. He didn't know about this travesty of a sham of a mockery - a traveshamockery! - and dopes within his Administration were to blame. The fact he has so many dopes in his administration isn't cause for concern, is it? Nah! Not. At. All.

Today mighty King O celebrates 100 days in office. A special Vulture Droppings will follow, devoted to the 100 days anniversary but also delving into the sycophantic press coverage that is sure to accompany said anniversary.

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hurl.

Death Knell: Part I - Follow the Money

Global Swarming -- The clustering of GangGreed around a money/power hive.
from The Urban Dictionary.

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Finally, after 4 months of promises and teasing, I'm starting my serious of posts on Global Warming, entitled "Death Knell". This first installment, "Follow the Money", intends to show who benefits on both the "pro" and the "con" side of the equation from their side coming out ahead in this debate.

We've been hearing for years how 'the science is settled', 'there is a scientific consensus', or 'people who reject global warming are like people who believe in a flat Earth or who deny the Holocaust'. Then there's my favorite: 'the only scientists denying global warming are those working for Big Energy'. Never mind that ALL of the scientists working for alternate energy companies, for the government, or on projects that are government-funded are part of the 'consensus'.

Never mind? Let me take that back. It DOES matter that the 'consensus' emanates from those sources. Why? Like they say in all of the detective shows: follow the money.

There once was a time when the only contrarian data on global warming DID come from those with much to lose from proposed efforts at curbing warming. Not anymore.

Nor is the public as easily duped now: over 40% believe that AGW is mostly hype.

Here is a breakdown of who has a dog in the fight, both Pro Warming as well as those of us who are "skeptics".

PRO:
Presidents:
George W. Bush
Barack Obama

Politicians:
Nancy Pelosi, who stands to profit handsomely from investments in "green" technology
Harry Reid
John McCommie
John Kerry
Team Donkey
Team Elephant Elite
Carol Browner, Nominated as Obama's Climate Czar

Governmental organizations:
The UN, who views warming as a vehicle for the formation of a new World economy
The World Health Organization
The European Union
NASA (Read this carefully - there are a number of outright lies in this "factbook")
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an organization that would have zero importance were AGW to disappear as a "threat".

Scientists:
Dr. James Hansen of NASA, who believes that warming should be used as a tool for wealth distribution (and who contradicts his pro-warming stance here)

Monetary beneficiaries of AGW hype:
Big Media - via propaganda (see here and here)
Multinational corporations
Al Gorebells, who has made millions from his fraud and stands to make millions more via cap-and-trade
Richard Branson, who stands to make billions from his "green" technologies
T. Boone Pickens, who stands to make billions from his "green" "solutions"
General Electric/NBC Universal, who stand to make billions from selling "green" technologies
British Banks, who seek to jump on the warming gravy train

In the interest of fairness, here is a list of those who will benefit if AGW is not addressed.

CON:
Pro-Business Groups (and other monetary beneficiaries):
Richard Mellon Scaife
Heartland Institute
The Science & Environmental Policy Project
The Cato Institute
World Climate Report
ExxonMobil
Competitive Enterprise Institute

Politicians:
Senator James Inhofe
Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic
Sammy Wilson, Environmental Minister, UK
Andrei Illarionov, Chief Economic Adviser to the President of the Russian Federation

Scientists/Meteorologists:
Joseph D'Aleo, meteorologist/Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS)
Fred Singer, Scientist/Professor
John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel
JunkScience.com
ICECAP (International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project)
International Geological Conference
Doctors for Disaster Preparedness
International Climate Science Coalition
The International Climate Science Center

Media:
John Stossel
Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun/Melbourne)

So I leave it to you, the reader, to discern which of these groups has the most to lose or gain based on the public's belief in AGW. You know which side I'm on; I have been an AGW denier since Kyoto, when this "emergency" was deemed to require the West to resort to draconian measures to "save the Earth" while completely exempting the Third World from action. A true "emergency" would require action by the entire globe. Am I right, or am I right?

Wiener of the Month - December

The WotM for December has a much more personal than usual twist to it. It seems that Big Enviro has struck again in their never-ending quest to rid the planet of pesky humans.

Vin Suprynowicz reports.

As usual, it was initially reported as unmitigated “happy news.”

“Your Metered-Dose Inhaler is Changing to Help Improve the Environment,” is how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration chooses to present word that the inhalers used by those who suffer from asthma and other respiratory ailments are being pulled from the shelves as of Jan. 1.

Back in 1987, representatives of the federal government signed the “Montreal Protocol,” in which 27 major industrialized nations agreed to halve their use of chlorofluorocarbon gases, which some believe could damage the earth’s ozone layer.

Real-world experiments to prove the theory have been in short supply — it’s hard to imagine how one would be devised, since it would first have to be shown how chlorofluorocarbons, which tend to be heavier than air, could reach the ozone layer in the first place.

Nor did the Montreal deal actually call for banning the propellant from the inhalers, since that use represents only about 1.5 percent of all CFC uses (it was less than 1.0 percent at the time), and signatory nations get to choose what uses to change. (Car air conditioning systems were the first use targeted — Greens hate cars — whereas the Environmental Protection Agency saw no immediate need to go after document-preservation sprays, foam insulation for coaxial cable, or CFC-based fire extinguishers.)

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled the switch would be mandatory as soon as a viable replacement could be marketed.

Reports show that the new drug is much more expensive than current remedies, some of which are available over-the-counter, bringing the cost from around $8 per inhaler to $40 or more.

Vin continues.

Meantime, multiple studies have shown that raising costs leads to poorer adherence to treatment; one study found that patients took 30 percent less anti-asthma medication, for instance, when their co-pay doubled. There are also concerns about patients getting proper instruction on use of the new inhalers, which need to be primed more often than the old models, and which also tend to clog and need to be cleaned more often.

So why is this personal to me? Because I'm an asthma sufferer, and have been since I was a small child. I know the panic of not being able to breathe, of struggling to get air down into swollen, laboring lungs. To think that Gaia is more important than a child whose only desire is that next breath is abhorrent to me! I can only wish the most horrible kind of death on people who put the vanity of "saving the planet" ahead of the terrifying plight facing many poor children in the year ahead. Die, all of you.

You're the Wiener of the Month for December.

Making criminals of us all

In a recent post I casually mentioned a phenomenon that gets very little attention anywhere. In fact, the only other person I've heard mention it before is Ron Smith of WBAL in Baltimore. The phenomenon of which I speak is the passage of laws and regulations by Congress that are so vague you could drive a truck through the gaps. These vague laws are then passed to some faceless bureaucracy to implement. Hilarity ensues.

You'd be surprised at how much of our "law" has been implemented by turf-hungry careerist bureaucrats. Let me lay it out for you.

Congress passes the National Everyone Must Be Happy Act. Just as one would expect from the title of the Act, it's more vague than a mime with ADD. There aren't any details to speak of. Just "be happy, damn it!".

The Department of Feel Good is created to enforce this Act. "Happy" Czar C. Brazen Hubris tasks his department heads to define the policy and the definitions of what "compliance" is, the better to reward those who comply and punish those who don't. When their "little" document is finalized (at around 1,300 pages), the "law" resulting from the Act is now complete. Regardless of the intent of the sponsors of the original bill, the law, as implemented, may be 180 degrees different from that intent.

As a result of this little game, Congress get credit for passing "magnificent" bills like the Americans with Disabilities Act, No Child Left Behind, and, of course, the Assault Weapons ban. Note the resultant success of each of these Acts (/sarcasm).

It is the Assault Weapons ban that comes into play here. Of all the federal black hole gawd-awful agencies that could implement this steaming turd of legislative nonsense, it fell to the very worst - the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). ATF seems to be the place where the very worst of schoolyard bullies eventually end up working. ATF would just LOVE to make criminals out of every gun owner in America. Think I'm kidding? You'll be of a different mind after reading this.

Savage's dispute with the federal agency stems from a recent project for which he sent a gun part he is developing to the federal government for review.

The part is intended to allow a certain type of gun to be used with a different size and less expensive ammunition. Savage, owner of Historic Arms LLC., said his part would convert the caliber of the guns to operate with ammunition that costs 1 or 2 cents per shell, instead of 25 cents or more.

He said such devices are fairly common. But he told WND he was stunned to get a letter from the BATFE stating that not only was his repair part a gun, it was a machine gun.

That conclusion came after the agency's testing bureau added some metal pieces, a length of chain, some duct tape and plastic wires to his gun part in order to make it fire a bullet.

Okay, follow me here. Dude invents an add-on part to allow guns to fire cheaper ammunition (great for target practice). ATF puts McIver to work on the gun and part. McIver creates a machine gun. Now dude is a criminal...just because some whiz kid could take additional parts never intended for use with either the gun nor the add-on part and rig a machine gun.

It gets better. There's the case of a poor soul whose weapon malfunctioned and shot three bullets with one squeeze of the trigger. He's doing 30 months in Federal penitentiary as a result.

"A gun that malfunctions is not a machine gun," Larry Pratt, executive director of GOA, said. "What the [federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] has done in the Olofson case has set a precedent that could make any of the millions of Americans that own semi-automatic firearms suddenly the owner [of] an unregistered machine gun at the moment the gun malfunctions."

When U.S. District Judge Charles Clevert imposed the sentence, a commentary in Guns Magazine said, "It didn't matter the rifle in question had not been intentionally modified for select fire, or that it did not have an M16 bolt carrier … that it did not show any signs of machining or drilling, or that that model had even been recalled a few years back.

"It didn't matter the government had repeatedly failed to replicate automatic fire until they replaced the ammunition with a softer primer type. It didn't even matter that the prosecution admitted it was not important to prove the gun would do it again if the test were conducted today," the magazine said. "What mattered was the government's position that none of the above was relevant because '[T]here's no indication it makes any difference under the statute. If you pull the trigger once and it fires more than one round, no matter what the cause it's a machine gun.' No matter what the cause."

No matter what the cause.

Do you still think I'm exaggerating when I say they're trying to make criminals of us all?