That's Mish's headline today, not mine. As Mish (and others) noted, a hacker (or an insider) broke into the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit and downloaded 156 MB of data. These include lots of damaging emails. (News reports: New York Times, Boston Herald. UK Telegraph, etc.

As reported in Watts Up With That, here's one particularly devastating email:

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxx

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK

I bolded the incriminating part of the email. There's nothing wrong with tricks per se; scientists have, over timed, developed tricks that are quite positive. But substitute "to deceive the public about the decline" for "to hide the decline" and you have the truth.

There's now a search engine for all these emails. Mish has excerpts from many, and there's plenty of damning information in them. Assuming the veracity of these--and as I noted, the scientists who have responded so far have confirmed the veracity of all of them--data has been falsified, statistics massaged, etc. so that the right answer (agw is happening) would be reached rather than the scientific answer, whatever that is, be found.

So far, researchers who have been contacted have confirmed that the emails posted are accurate. Mish concludes, "...we now know that data supporting the global warming thesis was completely fabricated." I won't go that far...yet. But it sure looks like, as climatologist Patrick J. Michaels told the New York Times, “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud.”

Does this mean that agw is false? No. It is still possible that agw has happened. However, what it likely means is there is absolutely no evidence for it.

During the Presidential election campaign, President Obama promised no new taxes on the middle class. He defined that as people earning less than $250,000.

Americans for Tax Reform has their list of the tax provisions in the Senate Health Care Bill. Many of these tax provisions would impact the middle class:
- Individual Mandate Tax;
- Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance (would likely tax most healthcare plans in high premium states, such as California);
- Medicine Cabinet Tax;
- Increase threshold for deducting medical expenses on tax return to 10% of AGI from 7.5% of AGI; and
- Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax (starts at $200,000 for single, $250,000 if MFJ).

There are actually eighteen new taxes or tax increases in the legislation. I'll be posting on this on my tax blog soon. This legislation would impose a burden on small businesses and will, if passed, increase costs for all businesses. For small businesses (which create 80% of the new jobs in the US) this will lead to lower hiring and a lengthening of the current recession.

No matter if you support health care legislation or are opposed to it, the tax impacts are as stated. This also proves a point of some on the right--that all of President Obama's promises come with expiration dates. That is, unless he plans on vetoing this legislation....

It's out, and it's even larger than the House Version. This may bore some of you, so under the cut we go....

( Read more... )

Watchdog.org has compiled where the phantom districts are. There are 435 Congressional Districts...except in the world of the stimulus, where there are 875. That's a total of 440 phantom districts. Those districts received $6.4 billion. The phantom districts now include North Dakota's 99th district; North Dakota would need a population of 60 million to have 99 districts. North Dakota, for the record, has one district.

Sure, it's likely these are data entry errors. But that's a lot of data entry errors. When I served on Jury Duty, one of the first instructions was, "If you disbelieve a part of a witness' testimony, you should throw doubt on the remainder of his or her testimony." The veracity of all of the stimulus data is in grave doubt. Numerous media studies have shown that the jobs created or saved numbers come out of thin air. Wherever studies have been made the number of jobs created or saved appears to be grossly exaggerated.

Let's be honest and describe the stimulus for what it was and is: Pork, plain and simple. As I noted in responding to a comment by JP, Mish calculated the cost per job at $323,739.83...and that's before considering the phantom nature of many of the jobs.

Does anyone really believe the stimulus numbers? Does anyone really believe the stimulus was anything but pork? Does anyone really believe the stimulus was a good thing for American taxpayers?

Let's hear it for the unions of America, looking out for me and you:

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.

Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city’s largest municipal union.

Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

Let's add Michigan to the list of states where the porkulus, er, stimulus created zilch. From the Detroit Free Press:

Seven months into the massive federal stimulus program, the vast majority of government grants, contracts and loans in Michigan so far have created or retained virtually no jobs, a Free Press analysis shows.

The analysis also revealed that others who have been promised or have received stimulus money have overstated — in some cases greatly — the number of jobs created or protected.

What a shock (not)! Read the whole thing.

The Los Angeles Times, hardly a hotbed of conservatism, reports on Arizona's 15th Congressional District. Here, the stimulus created 30 new jobs in this "..little-known rural corner of Arizona at a cost to American taxpayers of only $761,420." [emphasis in original] The district is little known for a very good reason: Arizona has only eight Congressional districts. Oops...

But that's not the only imaginary district where jobs have been magically created. From Minnesota to the Northern Mariana Islands to Arizona's 86th Congressional District, these jobs (and as, ABC notes, likely data-entry errors) are "more art than science."

Does anyone really believe those numbers of jobs created?

---

Under the House Health Care Plan, California's top marginal tax rate would be 56.81% according to the Tax Foundation. And that's before the elimination of the Bush Tax Cuts and whatever other tax increases the current Administration has planned.

An AP survey notes what should be obvious to all: Once the cost of ObamaCare is known, the public opposes it.

When poll questions were framed broadly, the answers seemed to indicate ample support for Obama’s goals. When required trade-offs were brought into the equation, opinions shifted — sometimes dramatically…

“These trade-offs really matter,” says Robert Blendon, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health who follows opinion trends. “The legislation contains a number of features that polls have shown to be popular, but support for the overall legislation is less than might be expected because people are worried there are details about these bills that could raise their families’ costs.”…

For example, asked if everyone should be required to have at least some health insurance, 67 percent agreed and 27 percent said no.

The responses flipped when people were asked about requiring everybody to carry insurance or face a federal penalty: 64 percent said they would be opposed, while 28 percent favored that.

Former Congressmen William "Cold Cash" Jefferson (D) was sentenced to 13 years at ClubFed this past week. Jefferson, as you may remember, kept $90,000 hidden in his freezer.

No liberal MSM bias? Newsweek's cover for November 23rd: "How do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah [Palin]? She's bad news for the GOP--and for everybody else, too." That's unbiased...not. I think it's #44 in my current list.

Thank you, adb_jaeger for his post noting the report that the Health Care plans would slash more than $500 billiion from future Medicare spending and "...would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others...." Jaeger's point is dead-on: You know it's bad if they dropped this bomb on a Saturday. What government agency is actually open on Saturday?

Playing that today (in via satellite). This thread will be used to report on it.