ClimateGate: Dr. Tim Ball on the secret CRU manipulation of temperature records

“We are at present working discreetly with all our might to wrest this mysterious force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local nation states of the world.”

– Professor Arnold Toynbee, in a June l931 speech before the Institute for the Study of International Affairs in Copenhagen.

. . .

Climategate: Dr. Tim Ball on the hacked CRU emails

“We must get rid of the Medieval Warm Period!” – Jonathan Overpeck

Mann has a new paper: he apparently discovers the Medieval Warm Period

McIntyre: The deleted data from the “Hide the Decline” trick

35 Inconvenient Truths

Timothy F. Ball
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ball has a B.A. degree from the University of Winnipeg, an M.A. degree from the University of Manitoba in 1970 in Geography, and a Ph.D. degree in climatology from the University of London, England in 1983, writing a thesis analyzing historical weather records from Canada’s north. Ball taught geography at the University of Winnipeg from 1973 to 1996, starting as a Sessional Lecturer and retiring as a Professor.

Report: Obama using Blackwater for assassinations in Pakistan

Raw Story | Nov 23, 2009

By Stephen C. Webster

The Obama administration is using mercenaries with the firm formerly known as Blackwater to kidnap and assassinate high value targets in Pakistan, according to a published report.

The program, operated out of the US Joint Special Operations Command, “is so ‘compartmentalized’ that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence,” an unnamed source with direct knowledge of the program told The Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill.

Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, is also allegedly involved in intelligence collection for a drone bombing campaign in the country.

Scahill’s report added: “A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. ‘We don’t have any contracts to do that work for us. We don’t contract that kind of work out, period,’ the official said. ‘There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services.’ The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency’s director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. ‘This is a parallel operation to the CIA,’ said the source. ‘They are two separate beasts.'”

A Blackwater spokesman told The Nation that none of its forces are operating in Pakistan. However, a “former senior executive at Blackwater” told Scahill that Xe’s mercs are indeed working in Pakistan, sometimes employed by the country’s government to operate alongside soldiers. The arrangement allows the Pakistani government to deny any U.S. military presence in the country, while allowing them to tap former U.S. special forces members for high-risk missions.
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Scahill added that the CIA is also employing the firm in parallel operations.

“Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now and the CIA knows that,” Scahill’s source reportedly said. “Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don’t care. If there’s one person they’re going after and there’s thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That’s the mentality. They’re not accountable to anybody and they know that. It’s an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?”

During the Bush administration, the JSOC was reportedly being commanded by the vice president’s office, effectively making them Dick Cheney’s own “executive assassination squad,” according to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.

President Obama’s top official on the occupation of Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, oversaw the JSOC from September 2003 to August 2008.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment, Scahill reported.

Hugo Chavez ‘doubts’ brutality of Idi Amin

Fresh from defending Carlos the Jackal, Hugo Chavez managed to upset Ugandans on Sunday by claiming that Idi Amin was not as brutal as everyone made him out to be.

Telegraph | Nov 26, 2009

“We thought he was a cannibal,” the Venezuelan leader said, referring to Amin, whose regime was notorious for torturing and killing suspected opponents in the 1970s. “I have doubts. … I don’t know, maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot.”

Mary Karoro Okurut, spokeswoman for the ruling National Resistance Movement, said Amin was not worthy of such consideration.

“Anybody who says that Amin was good has something wrong with him,” she said on Sunday. “Amin was brutal. He killed many Ugandans and made many run into exile. There is something wrong with whoever praises Amin.”

There is no exact figure for the number of people killed during Amin’s 1971-1979 regime but estimates range up to 500,000 people.

Ugandan officials did not say whether they would take any formal diplomatic action. Venezuela has no embassy in Uganda.

On Saturday Mr Chavez described Carlos the Jackal, real name Ilich Sanchez Ramirez, who is serving a life sentence in France, as a “revolutionary fighter”.

China admits it runs illegal black jails to torture citizens who file complaints

A magazine run by the Chinese government has revealed the existence of a network of secret detention centres or “black jails” in Beijing where inmates are often beaten or tortured.

The Liaowang report said that the number of people employed by local governments to abduct citizens can reach over 10,000

The victims of the jails are usually ordinary Chinese who have travelled to Beijing to lodge a complaint, or petition.

Telegraph | Nov 26, 2009

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

Until now, the Communist Party has strenuously denied running black jails, despite a growing number of testimonies and evidence from former inmates.

However, a report in Liaowang (Outlook), a magazine which is written for elite government officials and published by the official Xinhua news agency, laid the system bare.

The victims of the jails are usually ordinary Chinese who have travelled to Beijing to lodge a complaint, or petition, with the central government that their local officials have ignored.

Every day, hundreds of petitioners arrive in Beijing from across China, only to be hunted down by plain-clothes policemen or even private security firms sent by their home province to “retrieve” them.

Since local governments are judged on the number of grievances that arrive in Beijing, officials are often determined not to let the petitioners file their claims. The Liaowang report said that the number of people employed by local governments to abduct citizens “can reach over 10,000”.

“In Beijing, a monstruous business network has emerged to feed, house, transport, man-hunt, detain and retrieve petitioners,” said the magazine. It added that there are at least 73 black jails in the capital, often in unused homes or psychiatric wards. Private security firms demand fees of 100 yuan (Pounds9) to 200 yuan per person they abduct.

Liaowang said the system “seriously damaged the government’s image”.

Inside the black jails, all mobile phones and identification cards are confiscated, and many inmates are beaten, sexually-abused, intimidated and robbed, according to Human Rights Watch, which interviewed 38 former detainees for a report which it published just two weeks ago.

At the time, the Foreign ministry angrily rejected the accusations from the NGO. “There are no black jails in China,” said Qin Gang, a spokesman.

In the report, one 46-year-old former detainee from Jiangsu province, who spent more than a month in a black jail, said: “They are inhuman…two people dragged me by the hair and put me into the car.

My two hands were tied up and I couldn’t move. Then [after arriving back in Jiangsu] they put me inside a room where there were two women who stripped me of my clothes [and] beat my head [and] used their feet to stomp my body.” At the beginning of November, a guard at a black jail pleaded guilty to raping a 20-year-old woman from Anhui province in front of a dozen witnesses. However, the court dismissed the charges against the “guesthouse” and two provincial liaison officials, according to the official China Daily newspaper.

For some activists, the state-sanctioned articles in Liaowang signalled a possible willingness by the Communist party to confront the problem.

“They have categorically denied there are even black jails. This is the first time an official, high-level magazine acknowledges that they exist. This is fairly significant,” said Wang Songlian at Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

Members of parliament walk out on ETS over carbon tax

Climategate: five Aussie MPs lead the way by resigning in disgust over carbon tax

Telegraph | Nov 26, 2009

By James Delingpole

Australia is leading the revolt against Al Gore’s great big AGW conspiracy – just as the Aussie geologist and AGW sceptic Professor Ian Plimer predicted it would.

ABC news reports that five frontbenchers from Australia’s opposition Liberal party have resigned their portfolios rather than follow their leader Malcolm Turnbull in voting with Kevin Rudd’s Government on a new Emissions Trading Scheme.

The Liberal Party is in turmoil with the resignations of five frontbenchers from their portfolios this afternoon in protest against the emissions trading scheme.

Tony Abbott, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Smith and Senators Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz have all quit their portfolios because they cannot vote for the legislation.

Senate whip Stephen Parry has also relinquished his position.

The ETS is Australia’s version of America’s proposed Cap and Trade and the EU’s various carbon reduction schemes: a way of taxing business on its CO2 output. As Professor Plimer pointed out when I interviewed him in the summer, this threatens to cause enormous economic damage in Australia’s industrial and mining heartlands, not least because both are massively dependent on Australia’s vast reserves of coal. It is correspondingly extremely unpopular with Aussie’s outside the pinko, libtard metropolitan fleshpots.

Though the ETS squeaked narrowly through Australia’s House of Representatives, its Senate is proving more robust – thanks not least to the widespread disgust by the many Senators who have read Professor Plimer’s book Heaven And Earth at the dishonesty and corruption of the AGW industry. If the Senate keeps rejecting the scheme, then the Australian government will be forced to dissolve.

For the rapidly increasing number of us who believe that AGW is little more than a scheme by bullying eco-fascists to deprive us of our liberty, by big government to spread its controlling tentacles into every aspect our lives, and scheming industrialists such as Al Gore to enrich themselves through carbon trading, this principled act by Australia’s Carbon Five is fantastic news.

Where they lead, the rest of the world’s politicians will eventually be forced to follow: their appalled electorates will make sure of it.

The aliens demand Earthlings sign Copenhagen Treaty, claims government space scientist

‘Alien spies live among us’ says Bulgarian gov space boffin

Say we must stop global warming

Register | Nov 26, 2009

By Lewis Page

A boffin at the Bulgarian national Space Research Institute has stated that not only are aliens living among us, but that they object strongly to “immoral behaviour” by humanity – such as causing global warming. “Unnatural” acts such as use of cosmetics and “artificial insemination” are also frowned upon by the extraterrestrial visitors.

Luchezar Filipov, deputy head of the space institute at the government’s Bulgarian Academy of Science, made these startling assertions to Bulgarian media earlier this week.

Related

Bulgaria: We are in contact with the aliens

The Sofia Echo, referencing other local media, quotes the eminent space brainbox as stating that “they [aliens] are here right now, among us” and that the extraterrestrials are “conducting surveillance” and – chillingly – “research” on humanity.

“They are currently all around us, and are watching us all the time. They are not hostile towards us; rather, they want to help us but we have not grown enough in order to establish direct contact with them,” said the Bulgarian boffin, according to Sofia news agency novinite.com.

Reportedly Filipov and unnamed colleagues have elicited this information by decrypting messages hidden within crop circles. The crop-circle “pictograms” were said to have been a response to questions posed by the Academy scientists.

Crop-circle comms being unreliable, Filipov apparently feels that future direct contact will come through the medium of “mental power and telepathy”. However, some basic themes have apparently been made clear.

“The aliens are very critical of our immoral behaviour and our destruction of the environment,” says Filipov, according to the Echo. “They say that global warming is attributed mainly to infrastructural engineering.”

Presumably the star-travelling aliens have long ago graduated to advanced energy sources such as nuclear fusion or antimatter, and sneer at our pathetic fossil-fuelled civilisation.

Filipov stated that the alien spies in our midst have other objections to our lifestyle, too.

“They are very skeptical of our use of cosmetics, and artificial insemination because this is unnatural,” he reportedly said.

There was no word on the aliens’ views on gang-probing of humans abducted as part of their “research” programme.

Vicar sends warning over satanic activity in the Forest

Vicar sends warning over occult activities

A rural vicar has warned people not to dabble in the occult after a sheep’s head was impaled on a pole outside one of his churches.

Telegraph | Nov 26, 2009

Rev Nick Bromfield says he has spotted several signs of black magic worship in the area and even seemingly harmless pub psychic nights and crystal readings can cause untold damage.

The vicar, who attracts some of the biggest congregations in the Forest of Dean, west Gloucestershire, fears people are being conned, hurt or frightened out of their wits.

Mr Bromfield decided to speak out after seeing increasing evidence of “dark forces” in the Forest and being called on to pick up the pieces when things go wrong.

“I want people to be aware of the potential damage that can be caused by this kind of activity,” he said.

“It might sound medieval to talk about the relationship between good and evil, but there is no middle ground on this. People need to leave well alone.

“I have been told there are people operating in a darker place, and I have seen signs of satanic activity in the Forest.

“It’s difficult to quantify but there is something about borders that attracts occult activity and the seclusion is also very attractive. They are allowing in forces that can do great damage.

“I know a lot of pagans in the Forest and they are as appalled about this as Christians.”

Mr Bromfield, the rector of Drybrook, Lydbrook and Ruardean, is asked to bless around 10 homes a year because of the owners’ fear something is amiss.

So far he has not needed to call in the diocesan deliverance officers who are allowed to perform exorcisms.

But he is regularly asked to help people who have been left angry, upset or sometimes scared after being tempted to contact dead loved ones.

The vicar says he has seen animal carcasses laid out in circles or surrounding stones, which could be a sign of black magic worship in the woodlands.

A few weeks ago a parishioner at one of his churches was upset to find a severed sheep’s head dripping with blood mounted on a pole in the grounds.

“Naturally it wasn’t very pleasant and I burned it,” said the vicar, who fears it could have been a warning.

“But I think it’s something that clergy in many rural parishes have experienced.

“It’s either a malicious deliberate provocative act against the church or our “friends” from that sphere of activity sending a tribute because we are successful.”

Act of Settlement: the history of why Catholics cannot rule over Britain

The Queen at the State Opening of Parliament  Photo: AP

The Act of Settlement in 1701 might be a cause of some embarrassment today but it was enshrined in law with the honourable purpose of securing a stable monarchy and avoiding further bloodshed and division over the state religion.

Telegraph | Nov 26, 2009

By Christopher Hope

England was a predominantly Protestant country by the late 17th century but there was widespread anti-Roman Catholic sentiment, with even the Great Fire of London in 1666 being pinned on “Popish frenzy”.

The century had started with the foiling of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder plotters in 1605, leading to strict anti-Catholic laws. Yet rows over the religion of the Monarch dominated the 17th century.

In 1649, Oliver Cromwell’s staunchly Protestant Commonwealth overthew Charles I, running the country for 11 years before Charles II was restored to the throne. He converted to Catholicism on his deathbed in 1685.

There was further upheaval in 1689 when the protestants William and Mary of Orange overthrew James II, who had been was accused of subverting his role by favouring fellow Catholics.

By the end of the 17th century fears over the succession had grown because William III was a protestant widower without any no children. This meant the crown would pass to his sister-in-law Anne, whose heir was likely to be her Catholic half-brother.

Parliament stepped in, drawing up the Act of Settlement to rule out any Catholics, or their spouses from becoming monarch. The new legislation stated clearly that no sovereign “shall profess the Popish religion or shall marry a Papist”.

The result was that Queen Anne, who died in 1714, was succeeded by a Protestant German prince, who became King George I.

As the role of the British state expanded with the British Empire, so the number of nations which would need to agree to any change to the law.

In modern times the legislation has continued to have an effect. In 1978, the Queen’s cousin Prince Michael of Kent was removed from the line of succession after marrying Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, a Catholic.

Then last year Autumn Kelly renounced her Catholic faith, allowing her new husband Peter Phillips, the Queen’s grandson, to keep his place in the line of succession.

Widespread sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland was covered up for decades by senior clerics, report says

Widespread child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Dublin was covered up for decades by senior clerics, a damning report will say.

Telegraph | Nov 26, 2009

Cardinal Desmond Connell, Archbishop emeritus of Dublin. Catholic News Agency.

Four Archbishops, including Cardinal Desmond Connell, will be named over their mishandling of hundreds of allegations, including not reporting crimes to the police.

The senior clerics’ motive was to protect the church above defenceless children, the report will find.

The Dublin Archdiocese Commission is the third inquiry in the last four years to rock the Catholic Church in Ireland following independent investigations into abusive priests.

The pattern of senior clerics moving abusers from parish to parish rather than dealing with the problem will also be addressed.

The 700-page report includes 45 potted histories of a sample of priests from 1975 to 2004 who were investigated by the Commission.

It is understood only ten priests will be named, as they are either dead or in jail, with the rest given aliases.

It will detail horrific abuse stories the Commission was told by victims, the response of Bishops and Archbishops and how gardai and health authorities reacted.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern will publish the report at Government Buildings.

The role of four Archbishops, John Charles McQuaid who died in 1973, Dermot Ryan who died in 1984, Kevin McNamara who died in 1987, and the retired Cardinal, were examined.

The Commission looked at the Cardinal’s role in the late 1980s and 1990s and the use of an insurance scheme, which he inherited, to pay off victims.

Cardinal Connell, who took part in the Conclave to elect Pope Benedict four years ago, ordered a trawl through the diocesan secret archives in 1995 to determine how many clerics had been accused of child abuse.

Only 17 names were given to the police.

His successor Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who has continually pushed for full disclosure of clerical child abuse, later found that since 1940 more than 400 children had claimed to have been abused by at least 152 priests in the Dublin area.

A High Court judge last week paved the way for the release of the report after two applications by the State to have its contents examined over fears it could prejudice criminal proceedings.

Any reference to two priests, and one of the cleric’s brothers, has been removed for publication.

Survivors of clerical abuse demanded the harrowing report be published as soon as possible to vindicate victims who for years told the truth.

Maeve Lewis, of support group One in Four, said it would also disclose collusion that took place between the Catholic Church, gardai and health chiefs at the time.

Up to 450 people have made abuse allegations against former priests in what is one of Europe’s largest dioceses, since 1940.

However, the long-running Commission of Inquiry into the Dublin Archdiocese has examined allegations against only a sample 46 priests.

Headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy, the Dublin inquiry has also been examining high-profile allegations in the Cloyne diocese in Cork.

Mandy and Cherie attend shooting party with Gaddafi and Rothschild

Lord Rothschild with Lord Mandelson at a routine suare’ in Corfu. Mr Gaddafi was said to be the best shot while Lord Mandelson did not pick up a gun.

Lord Mandelson attended shoot with Gaddafi’s son

Lord Mandelson, the First Secretary, was last night at the centre of fresh controversy after it emerged he had recently socialised at a shoot with the son of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Telegraph | Nov 26, 2009

By Andrew Porter and Rosa Prince

Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi attended the event at a stately home in Buckinghamshire, along with the financier Nat Rothschild, who is a friend of Lord Mandelson.

The extent of Government relations with Libya were exposed when, to widespread condemnation from victims’ families and President Barack Obama, the Lockerbie bomber was released in August.

Ministers had appeared happy for Abdelbasset al-Megrahi to go free on compassionate grounds in exchange for fostering closer business and trade links with the former rogue state.

Related

Cherie also joined the Rothschild family for dinner during Mandy’s stay.

The gathering at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, is revealed by Charles Moore, a Daily Telegraph columnist, in this week’s Spectator magazine. The home was built for the Rothschild family and also at the shoot was Lord Rothschild, Nat’s father.

Mr Gaddafi was said to be the best shot while Lord Mandelson did not pick up a gun. Last night Lord Mandelson’s office confirmed that he had attended.

A spokesman said: “We do not offer a running commentary on Peter Mandelson’s social engagements, but we can confirm that he has never taken part in a pheasant shoot, and never will.”

But opposition MPs again questioned the close relationship between Mr Gaddafi and the Government.

Douglas Carswell, a Conservative backbencher, said: “I think it is pretty astonishing that a minister of the crown should be present at a pheasant shooting party with the son of Gaddafi.

“It is particularly concerning given what has already happened with the Lockerbie bombing. There is already suspicion about the closeness of the links between the Government and the Gaddafi regime, and this will fuel those fears even further.”

Lord Mandelson has defended the Government’s position on Megrahi and has previously met Gaddafi in August, shortly before the release of the Lockerbie bomber, at the Rothschild villa in Corfu.

He admitted that the two had briefly discussed Megrahi’s case during the gathering of the rich and famous. But his spokesman insisted that the peer had not been involved in the decision to release the bomber, and did not know that he would be freed before learning of it from television reports.

The spokesman said: “There was a fleeting conversation about the prisoner. Peter was completely unsighted on the subject.”

Despite Gordon Brown maintaining that the release of Megrahi was entirely a matter for Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Minister, the Conservatives demanded to know the extent of the meetings held in recent years between British ministers and Libyan counterparts.

It emerged that several meetings over trade and improved links between London and Tripoli had taken place.

Mr Gaddafi criticised the Conservatives for attacking Mr Brown over the release of the Lockerbie bomber. He called their behaviour “immoral.”

Waddesdon Manor was built for the Rothschild family in the late 19th century on farmland purchased by Ferdinand de Rothschild from the Duke of Marlborough, and resembles a French chateau.

Four generations of the banking family have lived there, and Queen Victoria visited in 1890.