CBO: Obamacare May Raise Your Health Insurance Premium 10%

The CBO pointed out that the legislation would lower premiums by 56 to 59 percent for those individuals who would receive subsidies to buy insurance on the exchange created by the legislation. This will be about 17% of the marketplace. Most other Americans should get ready for a premium hike.

From The Hill:

Individual insurance premiums would increase by an average of 10 percent or more, according to an analysis of the Senate healthcare bill.

The long-awaited report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) also concluded that subsidies provided by the legislation would make coverage cheaper for those who qualify.

The report, issued in the form of a letter to Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), will provide both Democrats and Republicans with ammunition as the Senate begins amending the healthcare bill on Monday.

"CBO and JCT estimate that the average premium per person covered (including dependents) for new nongroup policies would be about 10 percent to 13 percent higher in 2016 than the average premium for nongroup coverage in that same year under current law. About half of those enrollees would receive government subsidies that would reduce their costs well below the premiums that would be charged for such policies under current law," the report says.

Global Warming Supporters In Denial As Climategate Scandal Continues To Fester

The Climategate scandal continues to fester like an infected wound covered with a wet bandage. The mainstream media and global warmists are in denial of the spreading Climategate scandal and trying to move on as if nothing has happened. Left wing pundits deny there is a smoking gun; in spite of smoking gun evidence. Global warming scientists are attacking each other while the UN IPCC chief tells us there is "virtually no possibility" they are wrong. Meanwhile, The scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted they dumped their data and think we should just 'trust them.' White House climate czar Carol Browner has drank the Kool-aid. She rejects the Climategate claims of doctored data revealed in these leaked emails. Undoubtedly, her B.A. degree from the University of Florida in English and University of Florida College of Law degree make her a an expert on the worst scientific scandal of modern times. The cover up circus wouldn't be complete without Robert Gibbs doing his 'Comical Ali' (pictured above) impression.

Seventy-one percent (71%) of American voters are angry at federal government

The winds of change are blowing through American voters. Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters are angry about the current policies of the federal government. This is a five percentage points increase since September. The number of voters 'very angry' has increased 10 percent since September to 46%.

Rasmussen reported:

Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters nationwide say they’re at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government. That figure includes 46% who are Very Angry.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27% are not angry about the government's policies, including 10% who are Not at All Angry.

Men are angrier than women, and voters over 40 are more angry than those who are younger. A majority of those over 40 are Very Angry. Only 25% of under-30 voters share that view.

The data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 71% who are angry at federal government policies today is up five percentage points since September.

Even more stunning, the 46% who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points from September.

Bill Press Calls Glenn Beck 'A Ticking Time Bomb'

First, CNN's Howard Kurtz equates Beck with Alan Grayson. Then, Bill Press calls Glenn Beck 'A Ticking Time Bomb' on CNN.

Comment from Weasel Zippers:

How is an elected official calling a lobbyist a whore, and a TV opinion show host saying that an elected official whose vote was paid for with $300 million tax payers' dollar, was 'hooking', the same thing?

Britain's Socialized Health Care Is Failing Women With Cancer

Great Britain has one of the most socialized health care systems in Europe. How's that working out for British women with cancer? They are dying due to lack of cancer drugs, doctors and rationing.

The Daily Mail reported:

British women are more likely to die from cancer than those in almost every other European country, an alarming report has revealed.

Death rates here are worse than those in Croatia, Russia, Bulgaria and Lithuania.

Overall England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are all in the bottom ten of a cancer mortality 'league table' covering 36 European nations.

It comes despite Labour tripling funding for the Health Service since 1997.

Health experts say the obesity epidemic, Britain's booze culture and lack of cancer drugs and doctors on the NHS are all to blame.

Although death rates for most types of cancer are falling in the UK, the country still lags behind most of Europe.

Despite the huge increase in funding, only 5 to 6 per cent of NHS expenditure goes on cancer compared with 7 per cent in France and 9 per cent in Germany.

The poor record has also been blamed on the rationing watchdog Nice which decides whether treatments are cost effective.

Two years ago a Swedish study criticised the UK for the 'low and slow' access to cancer drugs and warned that thousands were dying because of pointless delays.

Why do Democrats want this health care system here?

Paul Krugman about Climategate: "There's Not A Single Smoking Gun In There" (video)

Krugman appears ignorant of the actual contents of the leaked emails. There is clearly a smoking gun. Krugman wouldn't recognize a smoking gun if he had a flaming howitzer stuck up his butt.

Paul Krugman On Climategate
by speakmymind01

From the video:

Krugman: "All those e-mails, people have never seen what academic discussion looks like, there's not a single smoking gun in there, there's nothing in there, the travesty is people are not able to explain why the fact that 1998 was a very warm year, doesn't actually mean that global warming has stopped"

Meet The Republican Who Wants Ted Kennedy's Senate Seat

Republican Senatorial candidate Scott Brown would be an extremely strong candidate in any state but Massachusetts. Even in Massachusetts, he may have a chance. His liberal opponents are busy fighting each other each other in a primary. Meanwhile, Scott Brown is running a solid campaign.



Here is an analysis from RedState:

While the Democrats are embroiled in a heated primary, Republican candidate Scott Brown is quietly running a solid campaign. In most states, Brown would be crushing his fumbling liberal opponents. But this is Massachusetts.

However, Democratic enthusiasm is in the dumps, while Republican enthusiasm is up. And there is a wild card. The election is being held in January, when many “snowbirds”, retirees with winter homes elsewhere, are gone; many college students are away on break; and the winter weather is too nasty for much of the lazy liberal base to get out and vote.

Many believe Scott Brown would be a solid vote against Obamacare and Cap and Trade. Let's hope for a January 19th miracle. A Republican victory would be fitting justice for the dirty trick Massachusetts' Democrats used to temporary appoint a Democratic to Massachusetts' vacant seat as Kennedy's dying wish.

Obama Fails In His Promise To Change The Way Things Work In Washington

Barack Obama campaigned on the promise he will change the way things work in Washington. We already know he has failed to work with Republicans in a bipartisan fashion and failed to veto legislation with earmarks. President Obama has also failed to appoint ambassadorships to career diplomats. Instead, he has handed out the political goodies to his donors and cronies.

Barack Obama is coming under fire for handing dozens of coveted ambassadorships to donors who raised millions for his presidential campaign.

The diplomatic postings range from tiny island nations in the Caribbean to major political partners, such as France and Britain, and have raised the hackles of many American diplomats.

The practice of appointing campaign donors instead of state department professionals has a long tradition in the US. However, many had hoped that Obama would reduce such displays of patronage.

That has not happened. Since taking office, Obama has made almost 80 ambassadorial nominations, of which 56% went to political appointees.

"It is time to end the spoils system and to stop renting out these ambassadorships for fabulous sums of money," said Susan Johnson, president of the American Foreign Service Association, which monitors the nominations. Johnson said Obama was on track to equal the number of such appointments made by President Bush. "It is business as usual," she said.

Some Obama backers have been posted to glamorous European countries. Britain's new US ambassador is Louis Susman, who raised more than $500,000 for Obama. The new ambassador to France is Charles Rivkin, a former TV executive who helped raise $800,000, while Germany is getting Philip Murphy, an ex-finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee who has donated $1.9m to the party since 1989.

Who's Who of Climategate (video)

Many in the mainstream media have tried to trivialize the Climategate leaked emails from the University of East Anglia. These leaked emails are not just internal email from a small group of climate scientists in Great Britain. These are global emails between the top scientists behind anthropogenic global warming. Meet them in this video.

University of East Anglia Threw Away Global Warming Raw Temperature Data

After the leaked email scandal, the University of East Anglia has been forced to admit they threw away the raw temperature data they used to make their predictions of anthropogenic global warming. They claim they only kept the 'adjusted' data. That is one sure-fire way to prevent skeptics from checking your calculations. Based on what programmers have learned from examining the leaked code the University of East Anglia used to calculate the 'Hockey Stick Graph,' their calculations definitely need rechecking.

TIMESONLINE reported:

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.

Government Health Care Control and Mandates Fail In Massachusetts

Romneycare in Massachusetts has many of the same provisions as the Democrats versions of Obamacare. Massachusetts health care reform was implemented in 2006. It included mandates, subsidies, and micro-manage health insurance policies. This sounds a lot like what the final Obamacare bill will likely look like. How do voters view the success of this state takeover of their health care? According to Rasmussen, only thirty-two (32%) of the state’s voters consider that reform a success. Thirty-six percent (36%) consider Massachusetts health care reform a failure.

In 2006, Massachusetts implemented its own statewide version of health care reform and 32% of the state’s voters consider that reform a success. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the Bay State finds that 36% consider the plan a failure and another 32% are not sure.

Those figures have changed little over the past two months.

Twenty percent (20%) now say that the state’s reform effort has made health care more affordable while 31% say just the opposite. Thirty-nine percent (39%) believe it’s had no impact on prices and 11% are not sure.

Sixteen percent (16%) say the Massachusetts reform has improved the quality of care in the state while 24% believe the quality of health care in the state has gotten worse. Most, 51%, say there has been no impact on the quality of care.

Claims of savings from health care reform in Massachusetts have been thoroughly debunked and the Massachusetts Medical Society reported that the average wait time for a new patient looking for a primary care doctor ranged from 36 to 50 days, even though Massachusetts has the highest concentration of doctors nationwide. Why do the Democrats want to spend $1 trillion to implement this system nationwide?

UN Climate Scientists Are Now Attacking Each Other

Popcorn anyone?

From Climate Depot:

A UN scientist is declaring that his three fellow UN climate panel colleagues "should be barred from the IPCC process." In a November 26, 2009 message on his website, UN IPCC contributing author Dr. Eduardo Zorita writes: "CRU files: Why I think that Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf should be barred from the IPCC process."

Zorita writes: "Short answer: Because the scientific assessments in which they may take part are not credible anymore."

Zorita indicates that he is aware that he is putting his career in jeopardy by going after the upper echelon of UN IPCC scientists. "By writing these lines I will just probably achieve that a few of my future studies will, again, not see the light of publication," Zorita candidly admits, a reference to the ClimateGate emails discussing how to suppress data and scientific studies that do not agree with the UN IPCC views.

Zorita was a UN IPCC Contributing Author of the Fourth Assessment Report in 2007. Since 2003, Zorita has headed the Department of Paleoclimate and has been a senior scientist at the Institute for Coastal Research of the GKSS Research Centre in Germany. Zorita has published more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific studies.

Zorita's stunning candor continued, noting that scientists who disagreed with the UN IPCC climate view were "bullied and subtly blackmailed."

In other news, the Goracle has discovered stellar fusion at the Earth's core.

Mann's 'Hockey Stick' Graph Without The 'Hide The Data' Trick

Ever wonder what the infamous Mann's 'Hockey Stick' graph would look like without the 'Hide The Data' trick? Here it is.


Does anyone see a 'Hockey Stick?'

The above graph was reconstructed from this leaked email by Climate Audit and posted on their mirror site.

CBC Pawned By Climategate Protester (video)

It isn't just the MSM in America that is trying to ignore Climategate. The media in other countries have their heads stuck in the sand too. Canadian CBC got pawned on live TV by a Climategate protester. This is too funny.

Many Standish Residents Don't Want Gitmo Terrorists In Their Town

Although Standish, Michigan is a town on the edge of bankruptcy, many residents are opposing the bid by their local leaders to use a mostly closed local prison to house terrorists from Guantanamo Bay.

A sign jutting from an open patch of ground is the first clue to the business of Standish: "Prison area. Do not pick up hitchhikers."

Further along the road into the small, isolated Michigan town, a 16ft-high chain link fence topped with razor wire glistens from behind a cluster of trees. On closer inspection the main gate to what had been one of the state's toughest maximum security jails is wide open and its five watchtowers abandoned.

The place is not entirely deserted though. A small group of demonstrators is gathered at the entrance.

"No Gitmo" say their signs.

"We don't want the rock stars of the jihad here," says their leader, Dave Munson. "I'm a Christian conservative just like Sarah Palin. We don't want terrorists here."

Charles Krauthammer: Kill the bills. Do health reform right.

Charles Krauthammer cuts to the heart of why the House and Senate health care reform bills should be tossed on the scrap heap of history. This is a great read.

Charles Krauthammer via the Washington Post:

The United States has the best health care in the world -- but because of its inefficiencies, also the most expensive. The fundamental problem with the 2,074-page Senate health-care bill (as with its 2,014-page House counterpart) is that it wildly compounds the complexity by adding hundreds of new provisions, regulations, mandates, committees and other arbitrary bureaucratic inventions.

Worse, they are packed into a monstrous package without any regard to each other. The only thing linking these changes -- such as the 118 new boards, commissions and programs -- is political expediency. Each must be able to garner just enough votes to pass. There is not even a pretense of a unifying vision or conceptual harmony.

The result is an overregulated, overbureaucratized system of surpassing arbitrariness and inefficiency. Throw a dart at the Senate tome:

-- You'll find mandates with financial penalties -- the amounts picked out of a hat.

-- You'll find insurance companies (which live and die by their actuarial skills) told exactly what weight to give risk factors, such as age. Currently insurance premiums for 20-somethings are about one-sixth the premiums for 60-somethings. The House bill dictates the young shall now pay at minimum one-half; the Senate bill, one-third -- numbers picked out of a hat.

-- You'll find sliding scales for health-insurance subsidies -- percentages picked out of a hat -- that will radically raise marginal income tax rates for middle-class recipients, among other crazy unintended consequences.

The bill is irredeemable. It should not only be defeated. It should be immolated, its ashes scattered over the Senate swimming pool. The rest is here.

ACORN Caught In Another Lie By Big Government

ACORN claimed they fired Juan Carlos Vera of their National City office for "unacceptable conduct" after he was caught on videotape giving advice to a pimp and prostitute who wanted to start an underage brothel to funnel money into a political campaign. One of the 20,000 documents retrieved from a 'dumpster dive" outside this office is Juan Carlos Vera's termination memo. Big Government has released the document. ACORN actually "laid off" Mr. Vera due to “restructuring” related to “videotaping incident." If this scandal had blown over, it wouldn't be hard to imagine Mr. Vera getting his old job back.

From Big Government:

The documents were thrown out in advance of state investigators arriving at the local ACORN office to conduct an investigation resulting from national media attention. ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera was videotaped giving advice to two individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute regarding underage prostitution and human smuggling. Without admitting any wrongdoing ACORN terminated Mr. Vera, or so they said. Documents provided to BigGovernment.com show that Mr. Vera was not terminated but was simply laid off, implying that Mr. Vera is also eligible for rehire. (The document also notes that Mr. Vera was laid off due to “restructuring” related to “videotaping incident.)

ACORN - Termination _Redacted_ -

WSJ: Two 9/11 Terrorists May Be Declared Unfit For Civilian Trial

The Wall Street Journal is warning Ramzi Binalshibh(pictured left) and Mustafa al-Hawsawi(pictured right) may be declared mentally unfit to stand trial. Their attorneys are claiming mental problems and harsh treatment by the CIA has left them unfit for trial.

From The WSJ:

WASHINGTON -- When five defendants are brought before a New York federal judge to face charges for the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the first question may be whether some of them are competent to stand trial at all.

Military lawyers for Ramzi Binalshibh, an accused organizer of the 9/11 plot, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, the conspiracy's alleged paymaster, say their clients have mental disorders that make them unfit for trial, likely caused or exacerbated by years of harsh confinement in Central Intelligence Agency custody.

The issue already has arisen in military-commission proceedings at the military's detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. According to an August ruling by a military judge, prosecutors have made an "apparent concession" that Mr. Binalshibh "suffers from a delusional disorder-persecutory type" disorder. Mr. Binalshibh has been prescribed "a variety of psychotropic medications used to treat schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder, including Haldol, Abilify, risperidone and Ativan," according to commission records.

This is more evidence AG Eric Holder is clueless and only trying to score points with the political left by classifying 'Jihadists' as common criminals.

Howard Dean Admits There Is No Reform In Democrats Health Care Bill (audio)

It is time for President Obama and Congressional Democrats to admit the truth. Their trillion dollar health care bills are not reform. They are a bailout for the uninsured. This bailout comes on the backs of the elderly and currently insured. They will see their health care costs go up and/or benefits go down.

Shocking Howard Dean admits Obamacare is trillion dollar, no reform, harmful bailout (audio)

Video: MSM Takes Notice Of Climategate (In Russia Anyway)

There has been very little reporting of the Climategate leaked email scandal by the state controlled MSM in America. Most of what little reporting they have done is superficial. If only ABC, NBC and CBS had the journalistic integrity of the Russian media.

Russia Today reported full coverage in this video.

Scientists under fire in climate change 'cover-up' scandal (video)

CBO projections for the Reid Health Care Bill's bill’s true first 10 years Are $2.5 Trillion

The CBO projections for the Reid Health Care Bill's bill’s true first 10 years Are $2.5 Trillion. This is because the taxes are front end loaded and the benefits are back end loaded. That allows the Democrats to claim there is a budget reduction over 10 years. This is a slight of hand Americans must know about.

The Weekly Standard reported:

Senate Republicans have just released an outstanding chart highlighting the accounting games that Democrats are playing with the costs of their proposed health-care overhaul. The Democrats assert that their Senate bill would cost $848 billion over ten years. But Congressional Budget Office projections show that only 1 percent of those costs would kick in prior to the fifth year of what the Democrats are calling the "first 10 years." In the bill's true first 10 years (2014 to 2023) -- that is, in the first 10 years in which it would be operational to any meaningful extent -- the CBO projects that the bill would cost $1.8 trillion.

But it gets even worse. The CBO doesn't say that the bill's total costs from 2010 to 2019 (99 percent of which would come from 2014-onward) would be $848 billion -- or that its total costs in its real first 10 years (2014 to 2023) would be $1.8 trillion. Rather, it says that these would be the gross costs of the bill's "expansions in insurance coverage." The CBO shows that there are many other costs in the bill as well, including spending related to the CLASS Act, risk-adjustment payments, funding for the government-run "public option" (not a cent of which is included in the figure for "expansions in insurance coverage"), and other new federal spending.

The Senate Republicans' chart demonstrates that the total for all of these costs -- based on CBO projections for the bill's true first 10 years -- is $2.5 trillion. And costs would only skyrocket from there, as the chart's trajectory suggests. In the 5 years to follow (2024-28), spending on "expansions in insurance coverage" alone would be $1.7 trillion, making the bill's total costs in its real first 15 years well over $4 trillion -- based on CBO projections.

Oh, My! Climategate is Spreading

Fraudulent cooking of the temperature books by a government agency in New Zealand has been alleged.

An agency of the New Zealand government has been cooking the books to create a warming trend where none exists, according to a joint research project by global warming skeptics at the Climate Conversation Group and the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition. The chief cook? Dr. Jim Salinger, considered one of the country's top scientists, who began the graph in the 1980s when he was at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK. CRU, of course, has become ground zero of Climategate at Dr. Salinger has maintained close relations with CRU since, as seen in the Climategate emails.

What do the uncooked books show? Rather than warming over the last hundred years, New Zealand's temperature has been steady.

Liberals shouldn't fear. There is something new to be alarmed about. Al Gore has discovered stellar fusion at the Earth's core.

Obama's 'Christian' Grandmother Has Arrived In Mecca For The 'Hajj'

During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, there were rumors Barack Obama was a Muslim. Obama denied these rumors and claimed he is a Christian. He did attend a Chicago church led by the radical Rev. Wright for 20 years. There was a strong attempt to debunk the "Obama is a Muslim" rumor. During this time period, AP ran a story supporting Obama's claim to be a Christian and identifying his Paternal Grandmother as a Christian.

Obama's grandfather had converted to Islam from Roman Catholicism and taken the name Hussein, Sarah Obama said, but his children had inherited only the name, not the religion. Each person should be able to choose how they worshipped, she said.

"In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents," she said. She, too, is a Christian.

Now, we learn Obama's 'Christian' Grandmother has arrived in Saudi Arabia for the 'Hajj.' The 'Hajj' is a holy pilgrimage to Mecca all Muslims are required to make and is one of the five pillars of Islam.

Mecca, 25 Nov. (AKI) - The grandmother of US president Barack Obama has arrived in Saudi Arabia for the 'Hajj' or Islamic pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, a Saudi daily said on Wednesday. Sarah Obama, 87, is being accompanied by a nephew and Obama's cousin, Omran.

On Wednesday Sarah Obama was in the valley of Mina with an African delegation, according to the Saudi daily Okaz.

No Wonder Team Obama is Clueless. They Never Worked for the Private Sector.

Less than 10% of Team Obama has experience in the private sector. No wonder they are focused on socializing medical care, raising taxes and implementing a governmental solution for all problems. This is by far the lowest percentage of Cabinet appointments with private enterprise experience of any President in at least the last century.

From The Journal of American Enterprise Institute:

When one considers that public sector employment has ranged since the 1950s at between 15 percent and 19 percent of the population, the makeup of the current cabinet—over 90 percent of its prior experience was in the public sector—is remarkable.

The Real Story Behind Thanksgiving

Via Freedom Keys:

The Real Story Behind Thanksgiving

Did you know that the first [Plymouth Colony Pilgrim's] Thanksgiving was a celebration of the triumph of private property and individual initiative?

William Bradford was the governor of the original Pilgrim colony, founded at Plymouth in 1621. The colony was first organized on a communal basis, as their financiers required. Land was owned in common. The Pilgrims farmed communally, too, following the "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" precept.

The results were disastrous. Communism didn't work any better 400 years ago than it does today. By 1623, the colony had suffered serious losses. Starvation was imminent.

Bradford realized that the communal system encouraged and rewarded waste and laziness and inefficiency, and destroyed individual initiative. Desperate, he abolished it. He distributed private plots of land among the surviving Pilgrims, encouraging them to plant early and farm as individuals, not collectively.

The results: a bountiful early harvest that saved the colonies. After the harvest, the Pilgrims celebrated with a day of Thanksgiving -- on August 9th.

Unfortunately, William Bradford's diaries -- in which he recorded the failure of the collectivist system and the triumph of private enterprise -- were lost for many years. When Thanksgiving was later made a national holiday, the present November date was chosen. And the lesson the Pilgrims so painfully learned was, alas, not made a part of the holiday.

Happily, Bradford's diaries were later rediscovered. They're available today in paperback. They tell the real story of Thanksgiving -- how private property and individual initiative saved the Pilgrims.

This Thanksgiving season, one of the many things I'm thankful for is our free market system (imperfectly realized as it is). And I'm also grateful that there are increasing numbers of Americans who are learning the importance of free markets, and who are working to replace government coercion with marketplace cooperation here in America and around the world.

Paul Schmidt

PS: A special thanks to long-time Advocate volunteer Cris Everett, who told us about this neglected bit of history several years ago, and who celebrates Thanksgiving on -- you guessed it -- August 9th.

Federal Reserve: Unemployment May Be 7.5% at End of 2012

This is very bad political news for President Obama and the Democratic Party. They will fully own those numbers.

From The Washington Post:

The unemployment rate will remain elevated for years to come, according to a forecast released Tuesday by the Federal Reserve that addresses for the first time economic conditions at the time of the next presidential election.

It paints a grim picture. Top Fed officials expect the unemployment rate to remain in the 6.8 to 7.5 percent range at the end of 2012 and said it could take “about five or six years” from now for economic activity to return to normal. The jobless rate was 10.2 percent in October. …

Climategate: The Fudge Factor

The University of East Anglia (above)

The FORTRAN code used for mathematical models by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in eastern England was leaked along with the emails. This is the code used to create the infamous hockey stick that started the whole global warming climate change fraud. Many pundits claim the attempts to silence dissenting views and violation of British FOIA laws are the most damning information in the leaked emails and files. Programmers are working their way through the messy code used by the CRU. They have found a smoking gun of fraud.

From Wizbang:

Eric S. Raymond is a software developer and advocate of the open source software movement. He wrote a seminal paper called The Cathedral and the Bazaar, which explained why open processes are more effective than top down ones. He has been studying the code used by the scientists at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, whose work raised serious questions about the quality of the research being used to underpin the proposed $1 trillion Cap'n Trade bill stalled in Congress. Here's what Eric found in the computer code:

From the CRU code file osborn-tree6/briffa_sep98_d.pro , used to prepare a graph purported to be of Northern Hemisphere temperatures and reconstructions.

;
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,- 0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,'Oooops!'
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)

This, people, is blatant data-cooking, with no pretense otherwise. It flattens a period of warm temperatures in the 1940s -- see those negative coefficients? Then, later on, it applies a positive multiplier so you get a nice dramatic hockey stick at the end of the century.

All you apologists weakly protesting that this is research business as usual and there are plausible explanations for everything in the emails? Sackcloth and ashes time for you. This isn't just a smoking gun, it's a siege cannon with the barrel still hot.

The lame stream media will try to ignore this and hope the story goes away. They tried this strategy for the ACORN scandal, but it backfired in the end. The Climategate scandal is just beginning. The bold is mine.

Voters Favor Republicans Over Democrats By 7 Points

The left wing attempt to take over health care, high unemployment and big government spending are turning Americans against the Democrats. Voters now favor Republican candidates over Democrats by 7 points in a generic ballot.

Rasmussen reported:

Republican candidates have extended their lead over Democrats to seven points, their biggest lead since early September, in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 37% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.

Support for the Republican party held steady from last week, while support for Democrats dropped slightly. Republicans have held the lead for over four months now. Democrats currently have majority control of both the House and Senate.

Voters not affiliated with either party continue to heavily favor Republicans, 44% to 20%.

Global Warming: Let The Mockery Begin (video)

Enjoy!

Hide The Decline - Climategate (video)


Hat tip Wizbang.

Leaked Emails Prove Major Climatology Computer Model Is Garbage

The Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in eastern England is a big player in the AGW scientific community. Their mathematical models were incorporated into the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report. Leaked emails prove their programmer "Harry" determined much of their database was garbage.

I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by Delaunay triangulation - apparently linear as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective - since we're using an off-the-shelf product that isn't documented sufficiently to say that. Why this wasn't coded up in Fortran I don't know - time pressures perhaps? Was too much effort expended on homogenisation, that there wasn't enough time to write a gridding procedure? Of course, it's too late for me to fix it too. Meh.

I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that's the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight... So, we can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!

One thing that's unsettling is that many of the assigned WMo codes for Canadian stations do not return any hits with a web search. Usually the country's met office, or at least the Weather Underground, show up – but for these stations, nothing at all. Makes me wonder if these are long-discontinued, or were even invented somewhere other than Canada!

The computer program used for modeling at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia was also leaked. Several programmers have looked at it and they are shocked.

As the leaked messages, and especially the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file, found their way around technical circles, two things happened: first, programmers unaffiliated with East Anglia started taking a close look at the quality of the CRU's code, and second, they began to feel sympathetic for anyone who had to spend three years (including working weekends) trying to make sense of code that appeared to be undocumented and buggy, while representing the core of CRU's climate model.

One programmer highlighted the error of relying on computer code that, if it generates an error message, continues as if nothing untoward ever occurred. Another debugged the code by pointing out why the output of a calculation that should always generate a positive number was incorrectly generating a negative one. A third concluded: "I feel for this guy. He's obviously spent years trying to get data from undocumented and completely messy sources."

Programmer-written comments inserted into CRU's Fortran code have drawn fire as well. The file briffa_sep98_d.pro says: "Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!" and "APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION." Another, quantify_tsdcal.pro, says: "Low pass filtering at century and longer time scales never gets rid of the trend - so eventually I start to scale down the 120-yr low pass time series to mimic the effect of removing/adding longer time scales!"

It's not clear how the files were leaked. One theory says that a malicious hacker slipped into East Anglia's network and snatched thousands of documents. Another says that the files had already been assembled in response to a Freedom of Information request and, immediately after it was denied, a whistleblower decided to disclose them. (Lending credence to that theory is the fact that no personal e-mail messages unrelated to climate change appear to have been leaked.)

No wonder they were deleting emails and conspiring to thwart FOIA requests.

Navy Seals Brought Up On Assault Charges After Capturing A Most Wanted Terrorist

March 31, 2004: Iraqis chant anti-American slogans as the charred and mutilated bodies of U.S. contractors hang from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah, Iraq.

This is outrageous. The political correctness of the Obama Administration risks destroying the morale of our military.

FOX News reported:

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq -- the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment -- called an admiral's mast -- and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors -- and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

The Navy Seals allegedly gave the terrorist scumbag a bloody lip. It is unbelievable they are being charged, even if this is true.

Obama Bowed Down To Our Owners

Obama Bows Before Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao...


'nuff said.

Rasmussen: Obama Presidential Approval Index Rating New Low of -15

President Obama has achieved a new low 0f -15 in the Rasmussen Presidential Approval Index Rating. His overall approval ties the low of 45%.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15. This is the lowest Approval Index rating yet measured for President Obama (see trends).

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve.

Quote of the Day From Senator Jim DeMint

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is a rising star in the GOP. He is a favorite of many conservatives and Tea Party goers. DeMint isn't afraid to buck the Republican establishment. He has endorsed several conservative candidates over party leadership favorites. Sen. DeMint believes in living up to his principles.

“The fastest way to a lasting Republican minority is to repeat the mistakes of the last decade — simply chasing numbers and power without living up to our principles,” DeMint said.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad: US and Israel "don't have the courage" to attack Iran

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said during a visit to Brazil:

"those you mention (Israel and United States) don't have the courage to attack Iran. They're not even thinking about it."

Ahmadinejad very well may be wrong about the Israelis. However, He may be right about the US as long as Barack Obama occupies the White House. It is clear the Iranians have lost all fear of the use of military force against them. Barack Obama can hint all options are on the table with the Iranians, but nobody in Iran or the US believes him.

AFP reported via Google Hosted News:

BRASILIA — Visiting Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said Monday that US and Israeli military threats against Iran were a thing of the past, and that, in any case, "they don't have the courage" to attack Iran.

"The age of military attacks is over, now we've reached the time for dialogue and understanding. Weapons and threats are a thing of the past," the Iranian told a joint press conference with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, closing his one-day visit.

Ahmadinejad's visit was greeted Sunday in Rio de Janeiro by a 1,000-strong rally of members of Jewish, anti-racist and gay rights groups who protested his past tirades against Israel and other groups.

Fielding a question on whether he feared an attack from Israel or the United States, Ahmadinejad said armed confrontation was no longer a possibility.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Refuses To Answer if Osama Bin Laden Should Be Read His Rights

Pelosi is such a weenie.

From CNSNews:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) refused to answer whether terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, if captured, should be told he has a right to a lawyer and a right to remain silent.

Pelosi Won't Say If Bin Laden Has 'Right To Remain Silent' (video)

Glenn Beck on "ClimateGate" (video)

Glenn Beck analyzes the collusion and conspiracy exposed in the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University. Beck rocks!

Glenn Beck Show - November 23, 2009 - Pt 4 of 6 - Climate Change Cover Up (video)

Retired Climatologist Dr. Tim Ball Dissects Hacked Emails

Retired Climatologist Dr. Tim Ball finds the information in the hacked (leaked?) emails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University very disturbing. It is very interesting to hear a climatology insider share his insights on these hacked (leaked?) emails.

Climate Change Bombshell: Dr. Tim Ball on the hacked CRU emails (video)

Dumpster Diving Pays Off At ACORN Office

California AG Brown announced he was conduction an investigation after the release of the Pimp and Hooker sting videos. Unfortunately, he failed to have his investigators visit ACORN offices for days. This is the same as the police calling a drug dealer and telling him they were coming over to check for drugs. What have the ACORN employees been up to while waiting for the investigators to show up? In San Diego County, they threw thousands upon thousands of private and sensitive documents into a dumpster. They were retrieved by a private investigator.

Big Government reported:

Shockingly, we now learn that the ACORN office in National City (San Diego County) engaged in a massive document dump on the evening of October 9th, containing thousands upon thousands of sensitive documents, just days prior to the Attorney General’s visit.

BigGovernment.com has learned that not only did this document dump occur, but the documents in question were irresponsibly and brazenly dumped in a public dumpster, without considering laws and regulations as to how sensitive information should be treated.

The documents released so far at Big Government contain names, addresses and social security numbers. Beitbart is hinting he has much more. Don't be surprised to see more of these documents released in the days to come. Shredders are about to undergo a sales increase.

Rasmussen: Only 38% Approve Of Democrats Health Care Reform

Fifty-six percent (56%) now oppose President Obama and the Democrats health care reform bills. Thirty-eight percent approve of the legislation. This is the lowest support Rasmussen has recorded for Obamacare. Half of the polling was completed after the Senate vote. The support for health care reform was lower in that sample.

Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan.

Half the survey was conducted before the Senate voted late Saturday to begin debate on its version of the legislation. Support for the plan was slightly lower in the half of the survey conducted after the Senate vote.

Unfortunately, President Obama and Democrats don't care what Americans think. They are going to ram their version of health care reform down America's throat.

Landrieu To Hold A Fundraiser For Harry Reid In Appreciation Of The $300 million 'Louisiana Purchase'

Chicago style politics are coming to Louisiana. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid inserted a $300 million buy-off into his version of Obamacare in order to secure Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu's (D-La) vote Saturday night. She will return the favor by holding a fundraiser for Reid in New Orleans next month.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., will host a fundraiser for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in New Orleans next month, an event that comes on the heels of Reid's assistance getting Louisiana a windfall of Medicaid money in the health care reform bill.

The event was planned "several weeks ago," according to Landrieu's office. She and political consultant James Carville will host a brunch on Dec. 12 at the St. Charles Avenue home of David Voelker, an investor who chairs the Louisiana Recovery Authority and was a supporter of Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Dumb Democrat Feinstien Claims KSM Trial Won't Be A Show Trial

Actually, Sen. Feinstien isn't that dumb. She knows the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other four terrorists is nothing but a show trial. She is being disingenuous. People might ask, "What is trying to be 'shown' in this 'show trial?'" AG Eric Holder is trying to make a point that there is no war on terror, 9-11 had nothing to do with Islam and these are just errant individuals who should be treated as common criminals.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Gallop Daily Obama Job Approval At New Low Of 48%

The Obama approval meltdown continues.

Flashback: Obama's Campaign Accused McCain Of Wanting To Gut Medicare And Undercut Employer Health Care

In October of 2008, Senator Obama's campaign accused Senator John McCain of planning to gut Medicare.

ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (AFP) — Barack Obama's White House campaign Monday accused John McCain of plotting to impose savage cuts on government-run health care programs that insure the elderly and the poor.

It was the latest attack from the Democrat's camp over an emotive issue that is taking on new urgency at a time when many Americans fear losing their jobs and thus the health care coverage that comes from their employers...

"This plan would be a disaster. It would dramatically reduce the quality of health care for older Americans and the poorest and sickest of Americans," said Bob Graham, a former Florida senator and ex-governor, on a media call.

Obama's campaign also accused Senator McCain of planning to undercut the employer-based health care system.

"This also is a plan which would undercut substantially the fundamental employer-based health care system on which most Americans rely today," he said.

Democrats are now implementing the same objectives they criticized Senator John McCain for in 2008. Every Democrat in the Senate voted to advance Harry Reid's health care reform bill. This bill includes over $500 billion in Medicare cuts and a public-option which many believe will lead to the end of private employer insurance.

Narcissist in Chief

Check out what Obama is reading.


Isn't that the latest GQ with him on the cover?


Nothing like a Sunday round of golf and a magazine with your mug on the cover.

Via FreeRepublic.

Global Warming Scientists Are In A Global Meltdown

Over at RealClimate, they are in damage control mode over the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Centre. These emails are exchanges between many of the 'big guns' of the AGW scientific community. Some of the emails relate to the launching of the RealClimate site.

From RealClimate:

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.

The anthropogenic global warming crowd is telling us these emails are representative of how scientists act and we shouldn't be shocked. Here is a summary of a few of the transgressions we shouldn't be shocked about:

Evading taxes. (0826209667)

Artificially truncating data sets. (0939154709)

Plotting to violate relevant FOIA laws. (1212063122)(1219239172)

Conspiring to hide data. (1254756944) (1059664704)

Artificially altering underlying data. (0942777075)(1254108338)

Suppressing criticism. (1139521913)(1054756929)

Cheering the death of a skeptic.(1075403821)

Plotting to destroy skeptics. (1047388489)(1256765544)

Plotting control of review boards to suppress skeptics. (1051190249) (1106322460)

Complete lack of outrage at fraud.(1188557698)

Letting politics lead science. (0938018124)

If this is a peek into how scientists actually interact, they should be tarred, feathered and rode out of town on a rail. The allegation that most scientists act in this manner is an insult to professional scientists around the world. By professional scientists, I do not mean Al Gore who recently discovered stellar fusion at the Earth's core.

There is a good analysis of the leaked emails by the attorneys over at Power Line.

Glenn Beck Speaks On Today's Top Issues (video)

Glenn Beck was at a Barnes and Noble bookstore in Orlando, Florida Saturday. He commented on most of the major issues facing America in this My Fox Orlando interview.

Glenn Beck Interviewed by My Fox Orlando (video)


On Sarah Palin:

“I think she has a good gut on her, I think she is a good women who did what I;m looking for and thats clean up your own party. I’m tired of the Republicans talking about the Democrats and vice versa. Don’t tell me about the Democrats anymore, tell me about your party and how you’re going to clean it up and she did.”

On the impact of the Tea Party movement:

“I think the Tea Party movement has only begun. I think a year from now the people in Washington should be extraordinarily frightened of the people rising up and kicking them all out of office.”

On the 2010 mid-term elections:

“If you are in there and you are part of the problem, look out brother because you ain’t gonna have a job next year.”

On health care reform:

“Destroy the economy, destroy the country. If it passes we will fundamentally transform America and it will not survive. I don’t know how long it will take, it will not survive.

On socialism:

“Are we headed there? I think we’re there and I think we are about to pass it if we’re not careful because there is a financial crisis on the way.”

On Afghanistan:

“It is immoral to ask people to serve and then not give them everything that they ask for. Give them what they ask for to complete the job or pull them home. He’s the commander-in-chief, he needs to make a decision one or the other, but stop this middle ground. We are killing people and being killed and its immoral.”

Transcript via PoliJam.

If Eric Holder Was Counting On German Evidence To Try KSM, He Is Out of Luck

Germany is refusing to allow any evidence they gathered against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants. Germany will not participate in any trial where the defendant could receive the death penalty.

FOX News reported:

A German government official says the nation will send an observer to the upcoming trial in New York of the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and four accused henchmen.

Justice Ministry spokeswoman Katharina Jahntz on Saturday confirmed a report in Der Spiegel that a German observer would attend the trial to ensure that no evidence provided by Germany would be used to apply the death penalty.

Three of the four suicide pilots who carried out the attacks had lived and studied in the northern German city of Hamburg. Germany, like the rest of Europe, except for Belarus, does not execute criminals.

Landrieu Blames ABC Report of $100 Million Buy-off on 'Very Partisan Republican Bloggers' (video)

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., announced she would support the cloture vote to start debate on Harry Reid's version of Obamacare. This is not surprising considering the $100 million buy-off Harry Reid put in the bill to buy encourage her to vote yes. She blames Republican bloggers for the story and denies that only Louisiana will receive the money.



Analysts disagree with Landrieu's assessment.

From Newsbusters:

"I know that might time is up, but I would like to ask personal privilege for just one more minute to address an issue that has come up unfortunately in the last 24 hours by some very partisan Republican bloggers so I need to respond I think and will do so now," Landrieu said. "One of the provisions in the framework of this bill that I've just decided to move on to debate has to do with fixing a very difficult situation that Louisiana is facing and any other state that might have a catastrophic disaster - let's hope they don't - like we did in 2005."
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But Landrieu's assertion that "any other state" would be eligible isn't completely honest, as Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer pointed out on Fox News Nov. 20.

"If you look at the sections, it is 2006 in which the Louisiana money, it looks as if it is provision for all states which have had a proclamation of a disaster area in the last seven years, and then the fine print inside eliminates all the others except Louisiana," Krauthammer said.

NOLA.com reports Landrieu is claiming Louisiana is getting $300 million in Medicare money.

Landrieu was able to insert language into the bill that would specifically benefit Louisiana, by protecting the state from the full effects of what the Jindal administration has warned would be a devastating drop in federal Medicaid funding in 2011 due to an anomalous spike in per capita income in the state because of a rush of recovery money into the state in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The Congressional Budget Office priced the so-called FMAP fix for Louisiana at $100 million, but Landrieu said she expects it will bring $300 million or more in Medicaid funding to the state.

"PRESIDENT or JIHAD?" Billboard Stirs Strong Response

Maintenance man David Lee of Arvada, Colo., puts the finishing touches on a sign featuring President Barack Obama for a sales lot for pre-owned vehicles along Interstate 70 in the northwest Denver suburb of Wheat Ridge, Colo., on Friday, Nov. 20, 2009.(AP Photo/David Zalubowski) (click for larger view)

A car dealership in Denver has put up a billboard comparing President Obama to a Jihadist. The billboard also says “BIRTH CERTIFICATE PROVE IT” and "WAKE UP AMERICA! REMEMBER FT. HOOD!" The dealer reports his employees have been called names and threatened in phone calls.

WHEAT RIDGE - A billboard from a local car dealership in suburban Denver compares President Barack Obama to a terrorist.

The billboard in Wheat Ridge shows a cartoonish Obama wearing a turban. The billboard says, "PRESIDENT or JIHAD?"

The words "WAKE UP AMERICA! REMEMBER FT. HOOD!" appear on the bottom.

The ad belongs to the car dealership Wolf Automotive. The owner, Phil Wolf, told 9NEWS, "I put up the billboard because I had questions. They haven't been answered. No one wants to ask them.

He says there has been a strong reaction to the billboard.

"My employees have been swamped with calls. They have been threatened and called names. I didn't expect that," Wolf said. "We live in a free country. We have the right express our opinions."

"It's my sign, my business and my property," he said.

AGW Climatologists Stunned As Global Warming Stalls Out

Climatologists advocating anthropogenic global warming caused by CO2 are baffled by the global warming time-out. The is no denying the global temperature rise has paused since the year 2000. This was not predicted by any of their models. The timing of the the admission is especially bad since the United Nations Climate Change Conference will take place in early December. Earlier this week, hacked emails were released indicating major players in the global warming scam were "cooking" the temperature records and suppressing critics.


Der Spiegel reported:

Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out

At least the weather in Copenhagen is likely to be cooperating. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that temperatures in December, when the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be one degree above the long-term average.

Otherwise, however, not much is happening with global warming at the moment. The Earth's average temperatures have stopped climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.

Ironically, climate change appears to have stalled in the run-up to the upcoming world summit in the Danish capital, where thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, business leaders and environmental activists plan to negotiate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Billions of euros are at stake in the negotiations.

Reached a Plateau

The planet's temperature curve rose sharply for almost 30 years, as global temperatures increased by an average of 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.25 degrees Fahrenheit) from the 1970s to the late 1990s. "At present, however, the warming is taking a break," confirms meteorologist Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in the northern German city of Kiel. Latif, one of Germany's best-known climatologists, says that the temperature curve has reached a plateau. "There can be no argument about that," he says. "We have to face that fact."

Even though the temperature standstill probably has no effect on the long-term warming trend, it does raise doubts about the predictive value of climate models, and it is also a political issue. For months, climate change skeptics have been gloating over the findings on their Internet forums. This has prompted many a climatologist to treat the temperature data in public with a sense of shame, thereby damaging their own credibility.

"It cannot be denied that this is one of the hottest issues in the scientific community," says Jochem Marotzke, director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. "We don't really know why this stagnation is taking place at this point."