posted June 24, 2010 10:38 PM            

The fact the Associated Press has a lower credibility rating among Americans than even the Treason Times is testament to the fact the American people have caught on to their lies, suppositions, rumor mongering and innuendo which they print as hard news.

posted June 25, 2010 08:35 PM            

You do have a poor memory don't you acoustic?

While only 21% of Americans believe all or even "most" of what the Treason Times...aka NY Times prints as news....

only 19% believe all or even "most" of what the Associated Press prints as news.

They're both in the crapper as far as credibiliy with the American public goes but the Associated Press has sunk lower in the toilet bowl.

Way too many lies. Way to much innuendo, supposition, rumor, political bias, propaganda and political activism for Americans to believe either of these MSM outlets.

So acoustic, if it's all the same to you...and even if it isn't, I'll exercise good judgement and disbelieve all or "most" of what the Associated Press...and those whom they choose to quote, have to say about anything. That would include their moronic science writers and the crackpot so called scientists of the man made global warming religion.

posted June 25, 2010 09:37 PM            

people believe that one year of a dog’s life is equivalent to seven years of we human’s.

Does that make it true?

It is largely believed the phrase "dark side of the Moon" refers to the a side of the moon that is always dark....also not true.

belief is just that.

Belief is increasingly politicized

posted June 25, 2010 10:34 PM            

Would you agree with me Node that when only 31% of those identifying as democrats believe all or "most" of what the Treason Times...aka, the NY Times prints and when only 29% of self indentifying democrats believe all or "most" of what the Associated Press prints as news....that then Node...there's trouble in River City..for the NY Times and the Associated Press?

I find it fascinating that you would bring "dogs" into this conversation.

There is a brand of journalism known as "Yellow Dog Journalism".

Both the Treason Times and the Association are practicioners of this type of journalism.

posted June 25, 2010 11:11 PM            

and then the problem MOST newspapers are having is ... the INTERNET. which is rampant with gossip and rumour and demands a very strong stomach and mental weathervane to sort the wheat from the chaff.

however when you talk about credibility jwhop i never can forget your quoting the daily mail and the daily mirror from england. the first is a half-step from being a tabloid and the second is on a par with the national enquirer here.

and you use rasmussen to corroborate obama's failings - the poll that excludes obama supporters on the grounds they aren't "likely to vote"...i still can't figure out how that rationale can be supported!!

but hey they printed stories that agreed with you so you believed them, didn't you?

posted June 26, 2010 11:06 AM            

Nope, just rounding out your post from the same PEW page.
It's worth a mention though that the research is exactly 6 years old this month.

posted August 05, 2010 11:51 AM            

I object when their political leanings and biases make it into so called hard news articles in the form of supposition, innuendo, rumor, distortions and outright lies.

The good news is that these practices have made reporters/journalists less credible in the eyes of the American public than politicians and used car sales persons.

The proper place for the exercise of journalistic bias, distortions, rumor and supposition are the editorial pages/opinion pages and not the news pages of publications like the New York Times and other organs of leftist malfeasance.

posted August 05, 2010 12:02 PM            

The U.S. Senate's proposed Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) would force electric utilities to generate a large and increasing percentage of their power from wind and solar -- rising to 15% by 2021. These goals resemble those of the Waxman-Markey bill that barely passed the House in June 2009. It's disturbing that some Republicans on the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted for ACELA (the American Clean Energy Leadership Act). If the Senate were to take up an energy bill, it is likely that Sen. Brownback (R-KS) will introduce an amendment for RES.

Now, it is quite clear that wind and solar are not economic -- and they probably never will be competitive, even when fuel prices rise significantly. So the RES mandate would mean that all of us taxpayers would support even more the RES rent-seekers and lobbyists, who are already milking the government for subsidies and tax breaks for the construction of wind farms and solar energy projects.

In addition, electricity users (rate-payers) would pay more for electric power to cover the higher cost. The so-called "feed in tariff" would force utilities to buy expensive wind and solar electricity and average the cost into the rest of the power produced. The consumer, meaning all of us, would pay for this extravaganza. It's just a huge transfer of money -- yet another regressive tax on consumers, with the electric utilities forced to become tax collectors.

The hoax part of the RES is that "clean electricity" is being advertised as a way to save the earth from the "dreadful fate" of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). To accept this outlandish proposition, one would have to believe that the carbon dioxide generated in the burning of fossil fuels has a noticeable influence on climate. The data argue against it. The constantly advertised "scientific consensus" is phony; it does not exist. The evidence that the U.N. climate panel, the IPCC, puts forward in support of AGW is pitifully inadequate -- and wrong. It is easy to show that no credible evidence exists; just look at the summary of the NIPCC report "Nature, not human activity, rules the climate." It is available for free on the internet.
http://junkscience.com/Greenhouse/22835.pdf

The fraud relates to the idea that energy produced without CO2 emissions is "clean." This word "clean" is being misused, and that's a huge part of the problem. Of course, removing the genuine pollutants like sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides and mercury from smokestacks is a real cleanup. It is already mandated by the Clean Air Act and being pursued adequately. But CO2 is not a pollutant -- in spite of the claims of the EPA in its "Endangerment Finding," which has yet to be tested in court. CO2 is not toxic nor irritating nor visible -- nor a climate-forcer of any significance, so the idea that we have to stop emitting CO2, or capture and sequester it, is a pure fraud.

And finally, the whole scheme is a financial rip-off. We all know that wind and solar energy are intermittent. If their use should rise beyond the present few percent, we would either require on-site storage of electricity or we would have to have standby capacity, probably fueled by expensive natural gas, to kick in when the wind kicks out. Either scheme would impose huge additional costs.

The biggest part of the swindle is that the RES is being sold on the basis of creating "green jobs." But since when does wasting money create productive jobs? Why not leave it with consumers who can save and invest it to create real jobs? A study conducted in Spain, which has gone overboard on renewable energy, shows that each so-called green job displaces between two and three real jobs. In any case, the manufacture of wind turbines and photovoltaic cells is now in the hands of lower-cost Chinese industry. So the green jobs would consist of sweeping the mirrors clean from dust and dirt and fixing the blades and gearboxes of the turbines when they fail.

In all of this, the proposed legislation ignores nuclear power, which is not only "clean" in the sense of not emitting carbon dioxide, but also competitive in price with most fossil fuels. Nuclear is most likely to become the major source of electric power once low-cost fossil fuels are depleted. Yet ACELA explicitly says that new nuclear power, updates to existing nuclear facilities, and generation from municipal solid waste incineration are not included in the base quantity.

posted September 02, 2010 05:28 PM            

If this keeps up, no one's going to trust any scientists.

The global-warming establishment took a body blow this week, as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change received a stunning rebuke from a top-notch independent investigation.

For two decades, the IPCC has spearheaded efforts to convince the world's governments that man-made carbon emissions pose a threat to the global temperature equilibrium -- and to civilization itself. IPCC reports, collated from the work of hundreds of climate scientists and bureaucrats, are widely cited as evidence for the urgent need for drastic action to "save the planet."

Pachauri: UN big scored great grants for silly science.

But the prestigious InterAcademy Council, an independent association of "the best scientists and engineers worldwide" (as the group's own Web site puts it) formed in 2000 to give "high-quality advice to international bodies," has finished a thorough review of IPCC practices -- and found them badly wanting.

For example, the IPCC's much-vaunted Fourth Assessment Report claimed in 2007 that Himalayan glaciers were rapidly melting, and would possibly be gone by the year 2035. The claim was actually false -- yet the IPCC cited it as proof of man-made global warming.

Then there's the IPCC's earlier prediction in 2007 -- which it claimed to have "high confidence" in -- that global warming could lead to a 50 percent reduction in the rain-fed agricultural capacity of Africa.

Such a dramatic decrease in food production in an already poor continent would be a terrifying prospect, and undoubtedly lead to the starvation of millions. But the InterAcademy Council investigation found that this IPCC claim was also based on weak evidence.

Overall, the IAC slammed the IPCC for reporting "high confidence in some statements for which there is little evidence. Furthermore, by making vague statements that were difficult to refute, authors were able to attach 'high confidence' to the statements." The critics note "many such statements that are not supported sufficiently in the literature, not put into perspective or not expressed clearly.

Some IPCC practices can only be called shoddy. As The Wall Street Journal reported, "Some scientists invited by the IPCC to review the 2007 report before it was published questioned the Himalayan claim. But those challenges 'were not adequately considered,' the InterAcademy Council's investigation said, and the projection was included in the final report."

Yet the Himalayan claim wasn't based on peer-reviewed scientific data, or on any data -- but on speculation in a phone interview by a single scientist.

Was science even a real concern for the IPCC? In January, the Sunday Times of London reported that, based in large part on the fraudulent glacier story, "[IPCC Chairman] Rajendra Pachauri's Energy and Resources Institute, based in New Delhi, was awarded up to 310,000 pounds by the Carnegie Corp. . . . and the lion's share of a 2.5 million pound EU grant funded by European taxpayers."

Thus, the Times concluded, "EU taxpayers are funding research into a scientific claim about glaciers that any ice researcher should immediately recognize as bogus."

All this comes on top of last year's revelation of the "Climategate" e-mails, which revealed equally shoddy practices (and efforts to suppress criticism) by scientists at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia -- perhaps the single most important source of data that supposedly proved the most alarming claims of global warming.

Al Gore and many other warming alarmists have insisted that "the debate is over" -- that the science was "settled." That claim is now in shreds -- though the grants are still flowing, and advocates still hope Congress will pass some version of the economically ruinous "cap and trade" anti-warming bill.

What does the best evidence now tell us? That man-made global warming is a mere hypothesis that has been inflated by both exaggeration and downright malfeasance, fueled by the awarding of fat grants and salaries to any scientist who'll produce the "right" results.

The warming "scientific" community, the Climategate emails reveal, is a tight clique of like-minded scientists and bureaucrats who give each other jobs, publish each other's papers -- and conspire to shut out any point of view that threatens to derail their gravy train.

Such behavior is perhaps to be expected from politicians and government functionaries. From scientists, it's a travesty.

In the end, grievous harm will have been done not just to individual scientists' reputations, but to the once-sterling reputation of science itself. For that, we will all suffer.

posted September 02, 2010 06:08 PM            

The Inter-Academy Council report on the processes and governance of the IPCC is now available. It appears mostly sensible and has a lot of useful things to say about improving IPCC processes – from suggesting a new Executive to be able to speak for IPCC in-between reports, a new communications strategy, better consistency among working groups and ideas for how to reduce the burden on lead authors in responding to rapidly increasing review comments.

As the report itself notes, the process leading to each of the previous IPCC reports has been informed from issues that arose in previous assessments, and that will obviously also be true for the upcoming fifth Assessment report (AR5). The suggestions made here will mostly strengthen the credibility of the next IPCC, particularly working groups 2 and 3, though whether it will make the conclusions less contentious is unclear. Judging from the contrarian spin some are putting on this report, the answer is likely to be no.
http://www.realclimate.org/
_________________________

Climate panel must adapt to survive

Review recommends better governance and transparency for the IPCC in the face of more public scrutiny.

Jeff Tollefson

A long-awaited report has recommended an overhaul of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The proposals were met with a largely favourable response from climate researchers who are eager to move on after the media scandals and credibility challenges that have rocked the United Nations body during the past nine months.

Released on 30 August, the recommendations are the product of an independent review — commissioned by the IPCC and the UN — that looked in detail at how the IPCC conducts its business. In the 100-page report, the Amsterdam-based InterAcademy Council, which represents the world's science academies, recognizes that much of the IPCC's work is done by a throng of volunteer researchers who serve on the IPCC's various committees and working groups. However, the report recommends that the IPCC follow the organizational model adopted by corporations and universities and appoint a full-time executive director, who would manage daily operations and communications while reporting to an independent board of directors.

The report also made recommendations to bolster the IPCC's science reviews, to establish formal guidelines on reporting conflicts of interest for IPCC authors, review editors, staff and leadership, and to improve communications with the public and media.

"So much of the IPCC is just run on volunteer labour, and at a certain point for an effort this important and this complex, you simply need more dedicated bodies," says Linda Mearns, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Founded in 1988, the IPCC's task of providing climate information to the UN has grown in complexity — along with the overall size of its annual budget, which is underwritten by member nations (see chart). The IPCC's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, says that the review bolsters the IPCC's reputation and demonstrates that the science it provides is fundamentally sound. "My hope is that the accumulation of so many investigations into climate science in such a short period of time will strengthen public confidence so that we can move forward," he says.

Harold Shapiro, a former president of Prince­ton University, New Jersey, who chaired the review panel, credited the IPCC with enormous successes, both in terms of assessing the science of climate change and garnering support from governments around the world. "But funda­mental changes are necessary to ensure its continued success," Shapiro says.

The controversies began last November, just before the climate conference in Copenhagen, when more than 1,000 private e-mails were leaked from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. Allegations of errors in the 2007 IPCC fourth assessment report surfaced shortly afterwards, all focused on the analysis by Working Group II of the potential impacts of global warming. The IPCC corrected a controversial statement that Himalayan glaciers might disappear by 2035, but subsequent reviews have upheld the core science behind global warming.

The review panel identified various problems with the way scientific uncertainty was handled in the last report. Shapiro says that the second working group's summary for policy-makers assigned "high confidence" — a quantitative measure that equates to 90% confidence — to statements for which there is little evidence. For example, the suggestion that the cost of adaptation to sea-level rise "could amount to at least 5–10% of gross domestic product", would have been better stated using qualitative language.

The report recommended that the IPCC strengthen its science-review process by encouraging review editors to use their existing authority to ensure that comments from reviewers are "adequately considered" when drafting assessments. The panel suggested that editors and authors could work together to rank reviewer's comments on the assessments to help manage the huge workload (drafts of the last assessment received 90,000 comments). Procedures must also be clarified for using and labelling 'grey literature' that has not been peer reviewed, such as reports by government agencies and advocacy groups.

Jay Gulledge, a senior scientist at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia, says that the report provides a solid set of recommendations that would move the IPCC forward. However, he says that the document glosses over the complex issue of evaluating and communicating risks, which is what policy-makers and the public ultimately want to understand. Although the IPCC has done a great job of advancing the science, he says, "I don't think it has done very much at all to advance society's understanding of the risks".

The recent controversies have also constituted the first challenge to Pachauri's leadership. Re-elected in 2008 to head the fifth assessment report, he was accused of ignoring early warnings as the errors scandal built up. Subsequent claims were made about improper financial ties to companies including Credit Suisse and Toyota. Pachauri says that any money he earned advising such companies went to support the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), a non-profit organization that he heads in New Delhi. That explanation was proved correct last week in an independent audit commissioned by TERI and conducted by consulting firm KPMG, headquartered in Amstelveen in the Netherlands.

Under the proposed management structure, the IPCC chairman would lead a board composed of not just IPCC leaders but members from outside the climate community. The review panel also suggested that all leadership positions should be changed after every assessment report to inject fresh thinking into the process, raising further questions about Pachauri's second six-year term as IPCC chairman.

posted September 02, 2010 10:56 PM            

One would have to be an imbecile to believe a single word coming out of the CRU, the IPCC or any of the other institutes of fraud.

They are so utterly corrupt they should be shut down immediately and their so called scientists and staff fired for cause.

Further, federal prosecutors should be hot on their corrupt as$es for taking federal taxpayer money under false premises and for making false misrepresentations to secure federal grants.

It's over.

posted September 15, 2010 08:24 AM            

Everything from A. Huffington's 50,000 square foot mansion in California..with a Lincoln Navigator parked out front, Algore's mansion in Tennessee which uses 20 times the electricity as the average home, "Father of the Year" hypocrite, the "Breck Girl", John Edwards 33,000 square foot mansion, Ted Turner increasing oil and gas production on his vast holdings of "environmentally sensitive" land, Algore's Gulf Stream private jet which he uses to fly around the world and harangue others about THEIR carbon footprint, Nancy (We have to save the planet) Pee-Lousy, who flies back and forth across America in the government version of a Boeing 757 jet...the commercial version carries 200 passengers...and baggage, the fleets of large SUVs owned by the US government as well as those leased by congressional members who want to pass restrictive CO2 limits..and charge Americans astronomical increases for the energy they use..........

But, those rules are only for others, not for them. While they wheeze, whine, screech and shriek in unison about doin somethin about CO2, they are examples of the worst offenders...unless of course...they don't believe a word of their own bullshiiit and know man made global warming is a total hoax, scam and fraud.

So, here's another hypocrite. His name is Harry Reid, Majority Leader of the United States Senate; the guy who is trying to pass O'Bomber's disastrous Cap (CO2) and Tax (energy} Bill in the Senate.

Could there be anything more absurd than a "true believer" showing up at a "Clean Energy Summit" with his handlers and hangers on in a bunch of large SUVs?

Just another "Do as I say, not as I do" hypocrite of the man made global warming religion.

Join the crowd Harry Reid, your numbers are legion but you and your fellow hypocrite's constant hectoring, lecturing and haranguing of America over man made global warming has hit the brick wall of reality.

Now, let's talk about those who claim to believe in man made global warming. In the picture below you'll see a bunch of "green hats" on the heads of so called true believers at this so called "Clean Energy Summit".

Why are these idiots standing there listening to Harry Reid, the hypocrite who showed up at their event with a bunch of gas guzzling large SUVs?

Why aren't they booing Reid and walking away in disgust?

Hint!! They don't believe a word of the bullshiiit about the religion of man made global warming either.

Posted by Henry Payne (The Detroit News) on Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 11:04 AM
Harry Reid arrives at clean energy summit. . . in a fleet of giant SUVs

Clean, Green Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rolled up to the Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada last week. . . in a fleet of giant SUVs.

The Heartland Institute reports that while the Senate Majority Hypocrite "and other high-profile environmental activists blasted carbon-based fuels at the Reid-sponsored summit, Reid and other bigwigs were caught on film driving to and from the summit in several SUVs."

"I was absolutely astonished, not to mention appalled, that Harry Reid would retain a fleet of gas-guzzling SUVs so that he and a few aides would not have to walk the mere 100 yards to address environmental activists," said Heartland Institute Senior Fellow James M. Taylor, who took the attached photo. "If greenhouse gas emissions are such a problem, you would think Reid might have actually made the short stroll through the parking lot, or at least retain Priuses rather than large SUVs for the summit," said Taylor.

posted September 15, 2010 11:09 AM            

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posted September 15, 2010 11:42 AM            

jwhop - in one post you speak of how you don't necessarily trust reporters/ journalists and yet the majority of your posts come from newspapers that "prove" your point in one form or another... so which is it?

posted September 15, 2010 01:21 PM            

Are you katatonic?

If so, please substantiate from a "CREDIBLE SOURCE".

emitres, I'm no fan of cheerleading political activists and propaganda artists for the demoscat party posing as "journalists". Neither is most of the rest of America.

That's the reason broadcast news and most newpapers are on life support as their viewers and readers have given up on them in disgust.

Articles I post have to pass a simple test...before I post them.

Is what they are saying...the truth...that includes both hard news stories and opinion pieces.

Are they drawing conclusions from what facts they are working with...which are not consistent with the facts they state...if any.

There are many articles by so called journalists which don't make the cut...both left and right.

posted September 16, 2010 10:25 AM            

65% of voters think investing in renewable energy sources like wind and solar is a better long-term investment for America than investing in fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. Twenty-four percent (24%) feel fossil fuels are the better long-term investment. There has been little change in these numbers since the first of the year....

Most voters (62%) continue to regard global warming as a serious issue, but that number has trended down slightly since last November when the Climategate scandal broke, raising questions about the research and methodology of many pro-global warming scientists. Thirty-four percent (34%) do not share the concern about global warming...

posted September 16, 2010 11:48 AM            

okay... but whose truth jwhop? and while i do appreciate and agree with you that journalists are not reporting all the facts this isn't a new thing... the moment the "news" became about popularity and ratings it stopped being about anything else...

but this is irrelevant to this thread - my apologies for the hi-jack

quote:

---

Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide together cause the vast majority of global warming. Raising animals for food is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

Carbon Dioxide
Burning fossil fuels (such as oil and gasoline) releases carbon dioxide, the primary gas responsible for global warming. Producing one calorie from animal protein requires 11 times as much fossil fuel input—releasing 11 times as much carbon dioxide—as does producing a calorie from plant protein. Feeding massive amounts of grain and water to farmed animals and then killing them and processing, transporting, and storing their flesh is extremely energy-intensive. In addition, enormous amounts of carbon dioxide stored in trees are released during the destruction of vast acres of forest to provide pastureland and to grow crops for farmed animals. On top of this, animal manure also releases large quantities of carbon dioxide.

You could exchange your "regular" car for a hybrid Toyota Prius and, by doing so, prevent about 1 ton of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year, but according to the University of Chicago, being vegan is more effective in the fight against global warming; a vegan is responsible for the release of approximately 1.5 fewer tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year than is a meat-eater.

A German study conducted in 2008 concluded that a meat-eater's diet is responsible for more than seven times as much greenhouse gas emissions as a vegan's diet. Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N.'s Nobel Prize–winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (and a vegetarian himself), urges people to "please eat less meat—meat is a very carbon-intensive commodity."

Methane
The billions of chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows who are crammed into factory farms each year in the U.S. produce enormous amounts of methane, both during digestion and from the acres of cesspools filled with feces that they excrete. Scientists report that every pound of methane is more than 20 times as effective as carbon dioxide is at trapping heat in our atmosphere. The EPA shows that animal agriculture is the single largest source of methane emissions in the U.S.
Nitrous Oxide
Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N., the meat, egg, and dairy industries account for a staggering 65 percent of worldwide nitrous oxide emissions.

---

posted September 16, 2010 01:06 PM            

i still eat meat but i wager if everyone ate as much as i do the factory farm business would go broke in a couple of minutes.

on the other hand i heard the scary news yesterday (in a radio headline) that some private citizen in georgia (i think) was ARRESTED for having too many vegetables growing in his garden...not by the feds but the local gendarmes. think of all the transport carbon, paper and plastic he is NOT using!

like jwhop i am not overly convinced that global warming is of human creation. but i look around and see the earth disappearing under a layer of litter which is frightening in its proportions. most of it not biodegradable ... whether or not we can reverse the warming trend i prefer to recycle, reuse and just plain NOT use a great many packing materials.