Posts Made By: Dave Snope

Three days before the horrific chemical attack that killed nearly 1,500 people in Syria, American intelligence agencies had strong “indications’’ the atrocity was about to happen, according to a shocking report yesterday.

The disclosure in Foreign Policy magazine has infuriated leaders of the Syrian opposition, who said they were never warned.

“If you knew, why did you [the US] take no action?’’ an outraged Dishad Othman, a Syrian activist living in America, fumed to the magazine.

He said none of his compatriots in Syria had been given any warning.

The Obama administration revealed the startling news Friday.

It released an intelligence report that said, “In the three days prior to the attack, we collected streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence that reveal regime activities that we assess were associated with preparations for a chemical-weapons attack.’’

Another Syrian activist, Razan Zaitouneh, told Foreign Policy, “it’s unbelievable they did nothing to warn people or try to stop the regime before the crime.

“Even the moment [of the gas attack], we thought it was as usual, limited and not strong,’’ she said.

That quickly changed “when we started to hear about the number of injuries.’’

US intelligence documents note that “satellite imagery, intercepted communications and social media reports’’ provided convincing evidence that the Aug. 21 attack was launched from government-controlled areas.

And it was aimed at rebel-held or contested areas, the magazine said.

The United States says the attack killed 1,429 people, including 426 children.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/us_knew_beforehand_but_didn_alert_zIxJnsl6LM1z7zZmPwFx4N

A major peer-reviewed paper by four senior researchers has exposed grave errors in an earlier paper in a new and unknown journal that had claimed a 97.1% scientific consensus that Man had caused at least half the 0.7 Cº global warming since 1950.

A tweet in President Obama’s name had assumed that the earlier, flawed paper, by John Cook and others, showed 97% endorsement of the notion that climate change is dangerous:

“Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.”

The consensus Cook considered was the standard definition: that Man had caused most post-1950 warming. Even on this weaker definition the true consensus among published scientific papers is now demonstrated to be not 97.1%, as Cook had claimed, but only 0.3%.

Only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate papers Cook examined explicitly stated that Man caused most of the warming since 1950. Cook himself had flagged just 64 papers as explicitly supporting that consensus, but 23 of the 64 had not in fact supported it.

This shock result comes scant weeks before the United Nations’ climate panel, the IPCC, issues its fifth five-yearly climate assessment, claiming “95% confidence” in the imagined – and, as the new paper shows, imaginary – consensus.


Here is the paper's abstract:
============================
Abstract


Agnotology is the study of how ignorance arises via circulation of misinformation calculated to mislead. Legates et al. (Sci Educ 22:2007–2017, 2013) had questioned the applicability of agnotology to politically-charged debates. In their reply, Bedford and Cook (Sci Educ 22:2019–2030, 2013), seeking to apply agnotology to climate science, asserted that fossil-fuel interests had promoted doubt about a climate consensus. Their definition of climate ‘misinformation’ was contingent upon the post-modernist assumptions that scientific truth is discernible by measuring a consensus among experts, and that a near unanimous consensus exists. However, inspection of a claim by Cook et al. (Environ Res Lett 8:024024, 2013) of 97.1 % consensus, heavily relied upon by Bedford and Cook, shows just 0.3 % endorsement of the standard definition of consensus: that most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic.


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/03/cooks-97-consensus-disproven-by-a-new-paper-showing-major-math-errors/#more-92998

The number of Americans who are 16 years or older and who have decided not to participate in the nation’s labor force has pushed past 90,000,000 for the first time, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In July, according to BLS, 89,957,000 Americans did not participate in the labor force. In August, that climbed to 90,473,000–a one month increase of 516,000.

In January 2009, when President Barack Obama took office, there were 80,507,000 Americans not in the labor force. Thus, the number of Americans not in the labor force has increased by 9,966,000 during Obama’s presidency.


90 million. That's almost like having the entire adult population of Bangladesh sitting on their butts being fed by someone else.

There are 104 million men aged 15-64 in the United States. Imagine almost all of them without a job at the same time. That's the Obama economic recovery. I'm thinking about going into the couch re-upholstering business.


http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/90473000-record-number-not-labor-force-almost-10m-under-obama

Next to Incheon Airport. What could go wrong?


http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/09/13/south-korea-will-soon-be-home-to-an-invisible-skyscraper/

These guys went to their buddy's house while he was away and plumbed all of his faucets with beer:

http://www.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/0_4nyt8vlc/uiconf_id/8700151

What the IPCC are saying about Antarctic sea ice in the draft of the next report:

‘Most models simulate a small decreasing trend in Antarctic sea ice extent, in contrast to the small increasing trend in observations… There is low confidence in the scientific understanding of the small observed increase in Antarctic sea ice extent.’


What the data is saying:

According to NSIDC, Antarctic sea ice extent reached its all time record high on 14th September, increasing to 19.512 million sq km, and beating last year’s record high of 19.477. Records started to be kept in 1979.

This year’s record is 941,000 sq km above the long term mean, and continues an upward trend in recent years.



To the IPCC, a million square kilometers of ice is a "small observable increase". But they have no problem adjusting temperature data up by a tenth of a degree then calling it a significant sign of catastrophic global warming.

This one is from Blue Shield. I've gotten the same treatment from Aetna and USAA. Who is going to be left to provide individual health insurance in California?

Obama: “But If You Like Your Health Plan, You Can Keep It”. Yeah, riiiiight. I liked mine a lot. They dumped me because of ObamaCare. I liked my next one. They dumped me because of ObamaCare.

Just came in the mail yesterday. Thanks Democrats! pic.twitter.com/9MpVEDuiVN
https://twitter.com/betapsi1266/status/381432228288286721/photo/1

According to the official website, these are the official providers for California. It looks like Blue Shield should be scratched. What a pathetic freaking list. That leaves only two serious major providers to choose from. The rest are ethnic and local clinic groups. Even if Congress can stop this ticking time bomb, Californians are still screwed. You can choose between a Ford Fiesta and a Chevy Sonic. Lowest common denominator. There's no need for real choice in the socialist utopia.

http://www.coveredca.com/news/press-releases/pr-08-07-13.html

Some of the quotes I've noticed today from the party of civil discourse. I'm sure there are plenty more.

Harry Reid: “There Is An Anarchy Movement Underfoot… We Will Not Bow To The Tea Party Anarchists”.

Nancy Pelosi: Republicans don’t want to defund Obamacare — they want to shut down the government because they’re “anti-government ideologues.”

Al Gore, at the Social Good Summit likened skeptics to racists, homophobes and violent alcoholics.

Tim Wirth: “Skeptics are ‘truly evil people”


Bill Maher: "if they don’t vote for the debt ceiling increase, because they have this coke addict’s obsession with repealing Obamacare,”

Steven McMahon (re Navy Yard): “Everybody with the guns stood around and watched..."

Rep Barbara Lee: “They (Republicans) go to church on Sunday and they pray, yet here on Thursday, what do they do? They move to cut and take away food from hungry people.”

Harry Reid: “Inside the House Republican bubble, the crowd cheered a plan to deny health insurance to tens of millions of Americans or else shut down the government,’’

Harry Reid: Republicans bent on defunding Obamacare or shutting down the government are “fanatics” with a “Thelma and Louise”-like mission to drive the nation off a cliff.

Politico: They would take the food out of the mouths of children... I am talking about a faction of far-right, tea party-driven congressmen who do not care who drowns.

Michael Moore: "Walter White would have received cancer treatment in Canada, so Breaking Bad wouldn't exist".

OMG. The party of 5-year olds is in full swing this week.

During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Candy Crowley read Pelosi part of a letter signed by union goon James Hoffa Jr. that described Obamacare’s impact on employers as a way to “destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week.”

“That’s pretty tough from a loyal Democratic constituency,” said Crowley, sometimes considered a pretty loyal Democratic constituency herself.

Pelosi was unfazed.

Some parts of Obamacare need to be clarified, she acknowledged, but losing that 40-hour work week will really free Americans to “pursue your happiness … follow your passion.”

“Obverwhelmingly, for the American people, this is a liberation,” the San Francisco millionaire said dreamily, possibly confusing “the American people” who have to make a living with her fellow guests at George Soros’s wedding Saturday in New York.

“It’s about wellness, it’s about prevention, it’s about a healthy America,” she said

HHS’ press release is full of happy talk about how premiums will be “lower than originally expected.” But the reality is starkly different.

Based on a Manhattan Institute analysis of the HHS numbers, Obamacare will increase underlying insurance rates for younger men by an average of 97 to 99 percent, and for younger women by an average of 55 to 62 percent. Worst off is North Carolina, which will see individual-market rates triple for women, and quadruple for men.

HHS releases a trickle of data and a load of spin



http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/09/25/double-down-obamacare-will-increase-avg-individual-market-insurance-premiums-by-99-for-men-62-for-women/?partner=yahootix#