Monday, February 28, 2011

UN can't account for billions in taxpayer money given them and are immune from criminal and civil prosecution for possible fraud

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The UN budget is at least $25 billion yearly, a quarter of which is supplied by US taxpayers. Files from 10/08 to 8/09 show large sums flow out with little or no accounting. Files were viewed in May 2010 by Claudia Rosett.

5/17/10, "Hot tips on waste, fraud, and abuse: US Mission posts scores of UN internal reports," Claudia Rosett, The Rosett Report, Pajamas Media

"Just days after I queried the U.S. Mission to the UN about its commitment to UN transparency (Paging Ambassador Susan Rice), the Mission finally posted on its web site more than 130 previously secret UN internal audit reports. The UN, for all its endless promises about transparency and
  • its ample enjoyment of other people’s money,

does not release these reports to the public. It is only thanks to the U.S. that they are now seeing daylight at all — though it takes some trolling through the Mission’s web site to find them....

Here’s a link to the U.S. Mission’s web page on UN Oversight and Transparency with the main links, and here are direct links to the newly posted and
  • until-now confidential internal audit reports from 2008 and 2009.

"Whether it’s a summary of the “higher risks” due to “the lack of an appropriate structure”

or a report on the dire derelictions of reporting and accountability dogging the plump trust funds of the

not bothering to produce

For those interested in the UN’s climate bureaucracy, check out the July, 2009 report on the slop of the UNFCCC Secretariat’s conference management, with its
  • multi-year delays in accounting for funds.

Or delve into the Dec., 2008 report on the UNFCCC’s Clean Development Mechanism, where...

  • the executive board “due to lack of time”

had neglected to adopt any code of conduct whatsoever to address

  • such corrosive problems

Or, in the realms of UN peacekeeping, with its more than $8 billion annual budget, for which

  • U.S. taxpayers alone fork out roughly
  • $2 billion per year,

check out the UN’s nearly $1 billion annual program for peacekeeping air operations. In an August, 2009 report, the UN’s

  • own internal auditors noted that participation by
  • senior management was “inadequate,

current staffing levels were “insufficient,” time of effective bidding on air charter services was “insufficient,” provisions in air charter agreements were “unclear” and some

  • was “improper.”...

An executive summary of “not adequate” is often code for

  • outright abuse or screaming failure...

But these reports...cover only a sampling of the UN’s sprawling global system...in corners that

  • rarely receive attention from the media...

For Washington to get any traction on pulling the UN out of its own administrative muck takes a lot of backbone and focused effort. But if the U.S. is to rely on the UN in any way,

  • as President Barack Obama wishes to do,

then the only course for minimizing chances of being tainted with the next colossal UN management scandal is for the U.S. to push hard, visibly and constantly for the UN to clean up its own house....

A quick bit of history here: When the (Iraq) Oil-for-Food scandal broke big time in 2004, the

  • including its chief donor, the U.S.

After a showdown with congressional investigators, the internal audits were finally tipped out in early 2005, via the UN inquiry led by Paul Volcker. They provided damning insights into UN administrative abuses and derelictions that helped feed the gusher of Oil-for-Food corruption. Those reports might have been useful in heading off the damage of that UN blowout,

  • had they been released to the public as they were produced,

instead of being exposed later as an embarrassing piece of the UN’s self-serving coverup.

In the aftermath of those disclosures, the U.S. Mission under the previous administration began obtaining UN internal audit reports and posting them on its UN reform section of its web site. That’s the third link on the Mission’s current main page for Oversight and Transparency, OIOS Reports Archive,

  • which runs up to Sept., 2008, and until the end of last week

was the most recent information available.

For any current attempt to patrol the UN administrative habits, the next questions are:
  • Where are the audits so far from 2010?

When will the U.S. Mission post those? And when will the White House fill the important post at the U.S. Mission of Ambassador for Management and Reform? Since Obama took office, that slot has been left to an acting envoy, Obama’s nominee last year having flamed out over questions involving his own issues of management. "[The position is still unfilled. Obama nominated Joseph Torsella in Nov. 2010 and renominated him in Jan. 2011].

"The Obama administration’s welcome decision to release the massive backlog of 2009 and late 2008 UN internal audits will only help if people actually read them and distill the information within, and U.S. authorities act by strongly pressuring the UN to clean up its endlessly proliferating mess — which in recent times

  • has had virtually no oversight.

The jury’s out. Meanwhile, here’s that link again, to scores of windows on UN management — or too often, mismanagement...."

--------------------------------------

The UN is free to act criminally with US taxpayer money because it is immune from prosecution:

4/16/09, "Report: U.N. spent U.S. funds on shoddy projects," USA Today, Ken Dilanian

"The U.N. ran a "quick impact" infrastructure program from 2003 to 2006 under a $25 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

  • The U.N. delivered shoddy work,

to figure out what happened, according to a report by USAID's inspector general obtained

"Due to the refusal of the United Nations to cooperate with this investigation,

  • questions remain unanswered," the report says.
because the U.N. officials have immunity, according to the report."...

A spokesman for UN Ambassador Susan Rice said the report was disturbing and that the US was "committed to making the UN more accountable," according to USA Today.

------------------------------------------------

Reference: 5/13/10, "Paging Ambassador Susan Rice," Forbes.com, Claudia Rosett


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Days of Communist China cheap denim factories are over-Telegraph

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2/26/11, "The end of China's cheap denim dream," UK Telegraph, Malcolm Moore

"Sitting on a bale of denim in an idled factory, 24-year-old Wei Xiaofeng has a message for the West - the era of Chinese factories churning out
  • dirt-cheap goods is over.

For years, her company, along with thousands of others in China, has helped British high street stores to offer cheaper and cheaper fashion - jeans that cost less than £10 or t-shirts for £3 -

  • and turned the likes of Zara, H&M and Topshop into global giants.

But now the system has broken down. Mrs Wei's company is in crisis and has stopped taking orders from the West.

"We are still getting orders from abroad - all the factories are," she said. "But no one is taking them because we would make a loss. The foreigners do not want to pay a reasonable price.

  • We have not made any profits for two years."

The Sea Mountain Clothing company, set up seven years ago by Mrs Wei and her 34-year-old husband Tian Yi, is one of around 5,000 jeans-making factories in Xintang, a southern Chinese town that has become the

  • denim capital of the world.

If you own a pair of jeans, there is a strong chance that it was stitched in Xintang, or that its denim was woven there. A sleepy farming town 30 years ago, it is now home to a million factory workers and turns out 260 million pairs of jeans a year -

  • more than a third of the world's supply.

The town's geography maps out an anatomy of the denim trade. Along the wide arterial motorways leading out of Xintang are the large factories, some capable of producing 60,000 pairs a day for the likes of Calvin Klein, Levi's, Lee and Wrangler.

Their technology is world-class - good enough for even the more esoteric and high-end denim labels like True Religion, Evisu and Diesel that were once only made in Japan or Italy.

Meanwhile, along the main streets in the city centre, every shopfront also belongs to a denim company. In each window sits a boss, inviting in prospective buyers with cigarettes and walnut shell-sized cups of strong Chinese tea. Upstairs,

  • floor after floor is filled with rows of workers sewing together jeans.

The side streets are taken up with the accessories of the trade: button and rivet shops, stores selling zippers, and long rows of businesses selling yards of denim, with trucks buzzing between them to load and unload bales of the dark blue fabric.

Finally there are the dusty suburbs. Here, family workshops spill out onto the road, with groups of women clustered around piles of jeans, stitching on labels, using heat guns to burn off loose threads and bagging them for sale.

"The local environment has suffered. Last year Greenpeace released a satellite image showing the run-off from the large cotton dyeing plants colouring all of the town's water, and much of the Pearl river, a deep indigo.

Xintang whirred into life 30 years ago, when Huang Lin, a businessman living in Hong Kong, saw the potential of moving his jeans business to the mainland. Other firms quickly blossomed and soon every country in the world began taking advantage of Xintang's

  • seemingly endless pool of cheap and hard-working labour....

Now, however, the Chinese factories have hit a wall. The workers who were once happy to work for as little as £30 a month now want ten to 15 times that sum.

Young men with the latest mobile phones and foppish hair cuts stood around two outdoor pool tables on the streets of Dadun avenue, gambling on the games.

  • Their factory is only paying them for six hours a day in a bid to trim its costs.

More and more workers are choosing not to travel to the South to find work, preferring to try their luck at one of the new factories or construction projects popping up

  • in inland China, where life is cheaper and they can be closer to their families.

"It is becoming impossible to find people to work," said Han Zhongliang, a 46-year-old factory boss from Hubei. "I have been here ten years and I used to have 30 to 40 employees. But this year I will be lucky to find 20 who can do the job are willing to work for the wage we offer: 5,000 yuan (£490) a month. If things keep on like this, there won't be any labour at all in South China in five years time.

Many other factories have already shut down. On the street where Mrs Wei's factory sits, only four of the 17 factories are open. In one desolate room, a former factory boss sat on a stool in shame: having lost all of his family's money, he was too ashamed to return home for the Chinese New Year holiday.

  • Other bosses complained that new labour laws have empowered workers far too much, and that the government has no love for the polluting denim industry, and offers no help....

Meanwhile, the price of cotton has sky-rocketed to levels not seen for 30 years. Floods in Pakistan and Australia,

  • an export ban from India and now

the wave of revolutions across the Middle East has made cotton unaffordable.

Already, designers have begun lacing their jeans with polyester in order to offset costs - a trend that explains the spread of new jeans with a

  • "shiny" finish on the high street.

"Last July, cotton cost 70 cents a pound," said Richard Atkins, a denim expert in Hong Kong and former creative director of All Saints, a high-end clothing brand. "Last week, it was three times that price. I tried to place an order with a denim mill for one million yards and they told me they could not accept it because the

  • cotton is now worth more than the denim."

The margin between success and failure in the denim business, and in the clothing trade in general, is razor thin. During the fat years, manufacturers could make 10p to 20p on each pair of jeans.

  • Now they make 5p if they are lucky.

The shockwaves rippling out of Xintang have already started to be felt. H&M, the giant Swedish clothes store, saw the profit margins that it makes on its clothes "collapse" at the end of last year, according to city analysts. Next and Primark have both warned

  • they plan to raise their prices.

Nor is there any alternative, realistically, to manufacturing in China.

Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Indonesia may be cheaper, but

  • they cannot compete when it comes to infrastructure and scale.

As a result, Mr Atkins, the Hong Kong-based denim expert, warns that high street fashion have may have to slow down in pace a little. ...

"Companies should be very scared, as throwaway fashion is now dead," he claimed. "For years they wanted to get more and pay less. They have

  • pillaged the system in China. But now they are going to suffer.""


via Jim McTeague, Barrons

Sunday, February 27, 2011

US is very receptive to subversion-Bezmenov, 1983

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War is not necessary. You can do all you want via subversion in 15-20 years, one generation. All you need is a receptive country. Japan, for example, is not receptive. The US, on the other hand, is very receptive. Tomas Schuman (Yuri Bezmenov) L.A. 1983
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Tomas Schuman (Yuri Bezmenov) L.A. 1983 pt. III 1/7



via Free Republic

NPR says Muslim beheading wasn't honor killing, just domestic violence

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2/27/11, "NPR Insists Buffalo Wife's Beheading by Muslim Outreach TV Founder Has No Islamic Overtones," Newsbusters.org, Tim Graham

"Almost the entire media skipped this chilling honor-killing verdict from Arizona on Tuesday, from Reuters: "An Arizona jury on Tuesday found an Iraqi immigrant guilty of second-degree murder for running down his daughter with a Jeep because she had become too Westernized." Faleh Almaleki killed his daughter Noor in October 2009 because she spurned his arranged marriage and was living with her boyfriend.
  • Apparently, to report this is to be "Islamophobic."

NPR skipped Almaleki, but they noted the verdict in another horrific killing on Monday night's All Things Considered: Aasiya Hassan was beheaded by her husband Mozzamil in 2009 as the two headed a Buffalo television project designed to create

  • better understanding about Muslims.

NPR reporter Dina Temple-Raston's objective was to deny this crime was about Islam. Instead, she said,

NPR anchor Robert Siegel tried to explain that "at the time, the media seized on the murder

  • as an honor killing.

That's a killing allowed in some Muslim societies when shame has been brought on a family. But NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports from Buffalo, the Hassan case is really about domestic violence

"The media" didn't exactly seize on Aasiya Hassan. But Glenn Beck did, and some local news outlets. Temple-Raston was

  • insisting Beck and Company were all wrong,

that they were purveying negative stereotypes. She went directly to Dr. Khalid Qazi for her thesis, a man she said "looks like Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'" She did not explain he was a head

  • of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a professional spin controller

on these issues, or that Dr. Qazi recently welcomed Ground Zero Mosque imam Faisal Abdul-Rauf to Buffalo:

Dr. QAZI: Nobody in the community can get their arms around that notion that he would not only kill her, he would stab her 40, 50 and perhaps 60 times and then decapitate her. There's absolutely no stomach for that.

TEMPLE-RASTON: Because she was Muslim, because of the way she was killed, and because Aasiya Hassan had filed for divorce just days before the murder, the media assumed that the killing was sanctioned by Islam.

Unidentified Woman Anchor: A brutal crime in Buffalo, New York. A Pakistani-born man is accused of beheading his wife,

  • and there's speculation it may be a so-called honor killing.

Mr. GLENN BECK (Host, "The Glenn Beck Program"): All right. This guy started a Muslim-American cable TV network

  • to challenge stereotypes about his faith.

You know, apparently, we're just too stupid. We just all think that all Muslims are bad.

TEMPLE-RASTON: That was Glenn Beck talking about the case. In fact, the Muslim community was being stereotyped. Dr. Qazi said news of the murder was everywhere.

Dr. QAZI: So there is this constant reminder of this monster who we all tried to project and help to establish a lifestyle television channel to show who we are and what we stand for

  • and then we get this.

TEMPLE-RASTON: Buffalo's Muslim community had already had its share of these kinds of stories. There were suspicions after the 911 attacks. And then, to make matters worse, a year after 911, six young Muslims from the Lackawanna community, just outside of Buffalo, were arrested and pleaded guilty to training at an al-Qaeda camp. Against that backdrop, stereotyping was easy.

The idea that Mo Hassan's murder was "everywhere" is simply untrue. As I noted at the time, the national media (including for a while, NPR) were certainly not picking up the story, despite the enormous news hook of "Muslim-understanding czar beheads wife." The outlets that did report it predictably downplayed the Muslim angle.

But pay attention to that part about the Lackawanna Six. Temple-Raston wrote an entire book on those terrorists in training called The Jihad Next Door. At Amazon, the Booklist review crackles with how this NPR reporter exposes the dark age of Bush:

As she sensitively portrays each of the five men currently behind bars, she reveals their dire naïveté and profound regrets, which stand in stark contrast to her revelations regarding the Bush administration's use of the Lackawanna case to bolster the Patriot Act and to justify the assassination of Derwish, an American citizen. Compelling and clarifying, Temple-Raston's invaluable exposé will stand as one

  • illuminated chapter in a dark saga of governmental crimes and cover-ups.

In the Aasiya Hassan story, Temple-Raston brought in another sympathetic expert, professor Remla Parthasarathy of the "Social Justice Clinic" at the University of Buffalo, who recently argued in a Buffalo News op-ed that there

  • was no "cultural concern" in this typical case of domestic violence:

Prof. PARTHASARATHY: Honor killings are something that is sanctioned and approved by extended family. That wasn't the case here. Religious leaders in the Muslim community came out and denounced it.

  • And they said it wasn't an honor killing, and I respect that.

TEMPLE-RASTON: In fact, when Aasiya's horrified family returned from Pakistan for her burial two years ago, it became very clear that

  • this was a domestic violence case.

Mo and Aasiya Hassan were not particularly religious. In fact, no one could recall ever seeing Mo Hassan at the mosque. As time went on, community leaders were presented with a stark choice:

  • either allow others to stereotype the community or

They came up with a novel approach: embark on a domestic violence education campaign. That allowed them to battle the honor killing stereotype, and it also provided new protection for battered women in the community. Domestic abuse had been an issue in the community all along. But according to Kathy Jamil, she's the principal of a local Islamic school, no one wanted to admit it.

Ms. KATHY JAMIL (Principal, Universal School): When this happened, everyone wanted to respond because it became very real for them, even though domestic violence happens. And I think a lot of that was really because now, Islam was under attack.

TEMPLE-RASTON: Islam was under attack, she said.

  • And that's what finally focused minds on the issue.

"Islam was under attack." That apparently means it's time for NPR to run to the rescue."

"Earlier: NPR Reporter Wrote Book on 'Dangerous Erosion' of Rights Under Bush with Executive Director of the ACLU"


via Free Republic

RomneyCare to mandate fixed budgets for health services

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Upcoming March program for Massachusetts health care to discuss imminent state legal measures to mandate fixed health procedure costs:

"Global Payments: The Next Chapter in Health Care Reform? "Moderated by Charlie Baker, former President and CEO, Harvard Pilgrim and 2010 Gubernatorial candidate.
  • Thursday, March 10, 2011
  • 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m., Reception from 5:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m.
  • Panelists:

Ellen Zane, President and CEO, Tufts Medical Center;

Secretary Judy Ann Bigby, Massachusetts Secretary of Health and Human Services;

Andrew Dreyfus, President and CEO Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts;

Representative Ron Mariano, House Majority Leader

Having led the nation on health care reform, Massachusetts continues to break policy ground with the imminent filing of legislation regarding global payments – a system that

  • mandates fixed budgets for procedures and patient care

as opposed to the current fee-for-service reimbursement method. Proponents see this as a way

  • to reign in costs

while delivering more comprehensive, patient-centered care; skeptics worry it will

  • significantly reduce patient choice.

Whatever the viewpoint, one thing is for certain:

  • the health care industry in Massachusetts will never be the same.

CommonWealth magazine will host the policy discussion that examines the real implications of global payments on consumers and the industry and asks the question: With so much at stake, can everyone win?"


via Free Republic

Violence at Atlanta MoveOn.org rally, union protester enters Tea Party crowd, positions self behind a member and shoves him into an iron fence

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2/26/11, Atlanta MoveOn.org union rally, Union protester
crosses street into peaceful group of Tea Party counter protesters,
positions himself firmly behind one man and shoves him into the iron fence.

  • What about Obama's Tucson speech? Where is media analysis?

via Gateway Pundit

Koch brothers sign and video from MoveOn.org rally, perhaps John Batchelor sympathy for haters' cause helped

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Above sign from 2/26/11 MoveOn.org protest in Jefferson City, Missouri
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MoveOn.org protester to Black Tea Party member, "You're on the Koch plantation"



2/26/11, in Jefferson City, Missouri

----------------------------

John Batchelor has a nationally syndicated nightly radio show. He earnestly hopped on board with Koch brothers demonizers on 2 of last week's shows. I commented on this at the end of the following 2 posts:

While the above speech and tone about the Koch brothers from the left is not new, they had to be pleased with Mr. Batchelor's sympathy for their cause. ed.


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Union shop steward physically attacks Tea Party activist at Sacramento MoveOn.org-organized rally


2/26/11, "Breaking: Union member attacks, injures Tea Party activist at MoveOn.org-organized rally," BigGovernment.com, by Chuck DeVore

"Sacramento’s ABC News 10 reported on the union rally and Tea Party counter rally in Sacramento today. ABC’s online report makes cursory mention of an incident of union violence directed at Tea Party activist Rodney Stanhope: “Police cited one man for battery after he allegedly shoved a tea party supporter.”

I spoke to Stanhope, as he drove to the hospital for x-rays and treatment for the injuries sustained at the rally, and asked him what happened. Mr. Stanhope said that he was with a group of about 150 Tea Party activists across the street from the MoveOn.org-organized union rally. A union man with a bullhorn, Richard Andazola, 28, was yelling across the street at the Tea Party activists, calling them “fascists.”"



----------------------------------
  • As of 3/16/09, Andazola was a union shop steward
From Teamsters for a Democratic Union, March 16, 2009, "Members Hold TDU Meetings in NorCal"

"TDU members and other Teamsters met this weekend in Sacramento and Tracy, Calif. to talk about how to beat apathy and get members involved in building a stronger union.

“I learned a lot and came away from the meeting inspired—and so did the other members I came with,”

“We’re taking the information we got back to the warehouse,” Andazola said."...

--------------------------

Following is video showing the union protester shoving the Tea Party protester.

------------------------------------------------------

2/26/11, "Demonstration turns into shoving match at state Capitol," News 10 Sacramento


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Saturday, February 26, 2011

With trillions in global warming cash at stake, Nature Magazine could say anything and governments would claim it's proof more taxes are needed

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2/26/11, "Unscientific hype about the flooding risks from climate change will cost us all dear," UK Telegraph, C. Booker

"As the great global warming scare continues to crumble, attention focuses on all those groups that have a huge interest in keeping it alive. Governments look on it as an excuse to raise billions of pounds in taxes. Wind farm developers make fortunes from the hidden subsidies we pay through our electricity bills. A
  • vast academic industry receives more billions for
concocting the bogus science that underpins the scare. Carbon traders hope to make billions from corrupt schemes based on buying and selling the right to emit CO2. But no financial interest stands to make more from exaggerating the risks of climate change
  • than the re-insurance industry,
which charges retail insurers for “catastrophe cover”, paid for by all of us through our premiums.

An insight into this was given by a paper published by Nature on February 17, which claimed to show for the first time how man-made climate change

  • greatly increases the risk of flood damage.

Among the eight authors of the paper are two of the most influential scientists at the heart of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Prof Peter Stott of the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre and Dr Myles Allen, head of Oxford’s Climate Dynamics Group. Two of their co-authors are from Risk Management Solutions (RMS), a California-based firm which is the world leader

  • in advising the insurance industry on climate change.

The study, based entirely on computer models, focused on the exceptional flooding that took place in England and Wales in the autumn of 2000. Its conclusion – that climate change

  • could

increase the chance of flooding

  • by up to 90 per cent –

was widely publicised, without questioning, by all the usual media cheerleaders for global warming, led by the

  • BBC’s Richard Black (“Climate change increases flood risk, researchers say”).

When less partisan observers examined the paper, however, they were astonished. Although Nature has long been a leading propagandist for man-made climate change, this example seemed truly bizarre. Why had this strangely opaque study been based solely on the results of a series of

  • computer models – mainly provided by the Hadley Centre and RMS –

and not on any historical data about rainfall and river flows?

The Met Office’s own records show no upward trend in UK rainfall between 1961 and 2004. Certainly autumn 2000 showed an unusual rainfall maximum, but it was exceeded in 1930. The graph between then and 2010

  • shows no significant upward trend.

While 2000 may have seen a lot of rain, 1768 and 1872 were even wetter. In the real world, the data show no evidence of an increase in UK rainfall at all. Any idea that there is one seemed to be

  • entirely an artefact of the computer models.

On Friday came the fullest and most expert dissection of the Nature paper so far, published on the Watts Up With That website by Willis Eschenbach,

His findings are devastating. After detailed analysis of the study’s multiple flaws, he sums up by accusing Nature of “trying to pass off the end-result of a long daisy-chain of

  • specifically selected,
  • untested,
  • unverified,
  • un-investigated computer models
as valid, falsifiable, peer-reviewed science”.

His conclusion is worth quoting at some length: “When your results represent the output of

  • fed into a fifth computer model,
  • whose output goes to a sixth computer model,
  • which is calibrated against a seventh computer model, and

then your results are compared to

  • run with different parameters,

in order to show that flood risks have increased from greenhouse gases…” you cannot pretend that this is

  • “a valid representation of reality”, let alone

a sufficiently accurate representation of reality to guide our future actions”.

This is precisely why the Nature study is of such significance – because it will undoubtedly be used to guide future actions,

  • which will in one way or another impact on all our lives.
For a start, consider the players in this drama. Prof Stott and Dr Allen have long been among the
  • most influential scientists in the world in stoking up climate alarmism.
A famous analysis by John McClean showed that they played a key part in compiling the single most important chapter in the IPCC’s last report, in 2007. The chapter, entitled “Understanding and attributing climate change”, cited many more papers by them than anyone else. They have now been appointed as lead authors of the relevant chapter in the next IPCC report, “Detection and attribution of climate change”, which

As for their two colleagues from Risk Management Solutions, this is not the first time that this leading adviser to the world’s re-insurance industry has been involved in a controversial bid

  • to heighten alarm over the consequences of climate change.

In October 2005, in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, RMS held a meeting in Bermuda with four hurricane specialists, all of the alarmist persuasion, to quiz them as to how they thought hurricane activity was likely to be affected between 2006 and 2010, thanks to climate change, and how this would impact on the southern United States, notably Florida. On the basis of this meeting, RMS advised the re-insurers that the risk of hurricane damage over the next four years

  • was hugely increased.

The companies found that their reserves were $82 billion short of what they might be expected to pay.

Under the heading “The $82 billion prediction”, the details of this episode are chronicled on his blog by Dr Roger Pielke Jr, who in 2008 advised RMS that the methodology on which it relied was so biased that “a group of monkeys would have arrived at the exact same results”. Dr Pielke, an expert in environmental impacts, recently published a chart showing how, although the RMS prediction for hurricane damage between 2006 and 2010

  • was a third higher than the historical average,

the actual cost proved to be well under half the average figure. But, thanks to RMS, the

  • insurance industry had made billions from higher premiums.

In 2008, following the disastrous floods of summer 2007, that vociferous climate alarmist Bob Ward, now at the Grantham Institute but then a director of RMS, called for the British government

  • to work more closely with the insurance industry

to devise mutually beneficial strategies for dealing with flood risks”. We understand how working with RMS might be beneficial to the insurance industry. But whether, in light of the Nature study, the Government would find it beneficial is another matter – never mind the rest of us,

  • as we are asked to pay ever higher insurance premiums,

based not least on the findings

  • of those RMS computer models."
--------------------------------------------

"Nature" Magazine is a Macmillan publication. Macmillan admitted
  • taking bribes related to an educational trust fund:
5/6/10, BBC: Macmillan Publishing faces a six-year ban from taking contracts financed by the World Bank after admitting bribes. Macmillan Publishing is the parent company of the prestigious "Nature" Magazine (not reportedly named in the action)."The World Bank Group has debarred Macmillan Limited... declaring the company ineligible to be awarded Bank-financed contracts for a period of six years in the wake of
education project in Southern Sudan. ...
  • International donors have pumped millions into development projects in the African region through a

Macmillan told Reuters news agency it had reached a settlement with the bank."

The mere thought of such a crime shows a corporate culture utterly beyond redemption. With trillions of dollars at stake, why would anyone believe anything from a Macmillan Publishing property? Because everyone-except the middle class taxpayer--is in on global warming cash.

  • Nature Magazine was the first to publish ClimateGate figure Michael Mann's "Hockey Stick" graph about alleged global warming in 1998. Following its acceptance by the prestigious journal, the United Nations Climate Reports of 2001 and beyond presented the Mann hockey stick as "settled science." Mann's hockey stick graph was used as a sales aid by Lehman Brothers to sell carbon trading financial schemes. Shortly thereafter, of course, Lehman brothers was bankrupt. ed.
----------------------------------------------------

  • How the re-insurance industry got into global warming cash.
7/24/09, "Insurance and reinsurance in a changing climate," 'Insurance and response to climate change risks,' EOEarth.org, Lead authors The Canada Institute of the Woodrow, Virginia Haufler:

"Jeremy Leggett of Greenpeace International was one of the first to make the link between insurance losses and global warming. In 1992, he began to urge the insurance industry to take action against global warming,
--------------------------------------------------

2/25/11, "No BBC/UK Government employee including Richard Black can be taken seriously while advocating global warming"
--------------------------------------------------

Soros feels bad for us. The taxes and regulations he's used to strangle the US (with help from willing politicians) have hit their first slight breeze. He says other people are "selfish." Slight case of projection for the convicted criminal of insider trading in France, convicted of stock fraud and ordered to pay a fine of over a million dollars in Hungary, along with other fines and penalties over the years. Still an active hedge fund operator.

2/21/11, "Soros: Tea Party activists are being 'used and deceived'," The Hill

""And they (the Tea Party) are misled by people who are using it for their selfish purposes, namely to remove regulations and reduce taxation," he (Soros) continued.
How many millions if not billions have suffered because of this person who made a fortune betting against fragile currencies, causing massive harm to poor and ordinary citizens?


via Tom Nelson

Under the guise of 'sustainability,' ICLEI quietly works its way into US state law and county code. Now stopped by brave group in Maryland.

.
"“Sustainability has less to do with the environment, and everything to do with economics.
It is an attack on capitalism, and
2/26/11, "Agenda 21 Part III: Maryland County Abolishes Agenda 21 – Now it’s Your Turn," Big Government, James M. Simpson

"The November elections marked a sea change in the political landscape at every level of government nationwide. Right now, all eyes are focused on the Wisconsin standoff between Governor Scott Walker and the public employee unions. But
  • under the radar, completely overlooked by the mass media, is
the unprecedented move recently taken by newly-elected Carroll County, Maryland Commissioners Richard Rothschild, Robin Frazier, Haven Shoemaker, Dave Roush and Doug Howard, who abolished the County’s Office of Sustainability.

They then voted unanimously to drop out of
  • the UN’s International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).
  • They are the first governmental organization to do so.
For those unfamiliar with the sustainable development agenda, this might not seem like much,
  • but it is huge.
If you have been following my recent series on the subject, you will know that local Sustainability offices, under the auspices of the ICLEI’s Local Governments for Sustainability, are the
  • tiny, visible tip of the monstrous Agenda 21 sustainable development iceberg,
the ultimate goal of which is to transform American society from the bottom up into a socialist ward of UN global governance. [See detailed public UN documents written at numerous global conventions. Obama UN appointee Susan Rice is currently attending a UN 'sustainability' conference as opposed to attending meetings in NY about Libya]. As of today, there are
who have signed on to this Trojan Horse.
  • Minus one.

All the commissioners are to be commended for this bold decision. Predictably, the left is up in arms. The commissioners have already been challenged to a debate on their decision and the other side wants to bring in heavy hitters from the EPA and the Maryland Department of the Environment in an

I think the commissioners took some skin.

Richard Rothschild led the charge. He campaigned on this issue, framing it, appropriately, as a matter of private property rights. In an American Thinker article he co-wrote last summer with Scott Strzelczyk, he explained that:

“Sustainability has less to do with the environment, and everything to do with economics. It is an attack on capitalism,
  • and an attack on America’s middle class lifestyle.”

Rich recently discussed Agenda 21 in a radio address. Listen here. This is the kind of leadership that has been sorely lacking at all levels of government and hopefully his example and that of his fellow commissioners

  • will embolden more such individuals to step forward before it is too late.

Following the election, Carroll County’s sustainability director saw the writing on the wall and opted for early retirement. He then began taking pot shots at the new commissioners in the local paper. After being party to the biggest attempted land grab in the county’s history

  • under the “Smart Growth” banner,

this clown had the gall to wonder aloud how anyone could believe a UN planning document marketed as “Smart Growth” could affect Carroll County. I have a suggestion for him: read the documents.

Rich responded to these attacks with an in-depth explanation of Sustainable Development published in the local paper:

  • Sustainability invokes government power to enforce activists’ views of environmentalism. They want to replace farmers’, ranchers’ and other landowners’ concept of stewardship with government-centric control. It merges environmentalism and socialism to expand government into every aspect of our lives, including
  • land use,
  • food production,
  • housing,
  • transportation,
  • manufacturing,
  • energy rationing and
  • even health care.

He identifies the ICLEI for what it really is:

…an organization with extreme beliefs on global warming that promotes United Nations’ big-government socio-economic policies. The UN Millennium Papers caution activists not to mention the UN Agenda because of potential American backlash, and instruct,

  • “So, we call our process something else,

Rich cites egregious examples of “sustainability” in practice:

Sustainability disciples use euphemistic terms like “environmental justice,” and collude with government to enforce oppressive regulations at any cost. Don’t believe me? Google “EPA TMDL lawsuits” and see the list of activists that sue the EPA and obtain federal court opinions that embolden oppressive regulations.

Why does the EPA advertise these lawsuits on its website? Ironically, every time the EPA loses to an environmental group, it grows stronger as courts direct the EPA to enforce. The courts have become unwitting accomplices to government overreach. One Maryland county faces $1.8 billion in regulatory mandates, possibly enough to push them to the

  • brink of insolvency.

In another bid for expansion, government auctions off imaginary carbon credits. The 2008 northeast auction raised $600 million

  • in hidden taxes that are passed on

to struggling families through higher utility costs.

The words “sustainable development” deceitfully suggest environmental conservation, and people who focus on the slogans without reading the fine print come up with simplistic conclusions like “it’s all about the environment.” In reality, Agenda-21 based sustainability programs seek government control of land, labor and capital in order to
  • promote “social justice”.

As documented in Part I of this series, buzzwords for socialism like “social justice,“collective,” “equity,” and “redistribution,” are used throughout Agenda 21 texts. If you study the documents that spawned Agenda 21, most formulated by prominent socialist leaders from around the world, it is clear that their key concerns are:

  • 1. abolishing private property and redistributing it according to socialist goals worldwide, and
  • 2. herding humans into small urban communities where, stripped of freedom and mobility, we will live and work according to government diktat.

For example, the Millennium Project calls for a global tax on all countries to provide monies for developing and third world countries. “Environmental sustainability” is only one of

The rest are a laundry list of anti-poverty and health programs; laudable goals maybe, but nothing to do with Chesapeake Bay pollution to say the least. Furthermore,

and elsewhere for decades, but because they are usually run by corrupt dictators of one form or another, such aid serves only to prop them up, thereby perpetuating the problem rather than solving it.

  • But they’re socialists, so it’s okay.
More to the point, Dr. Michael Coffman’s famous Agenda 21 “Wildlands” map reveals the endgame of Agenda 21:


  • Agenda 21 is being implemented throughout the U.S., as the quiet work of

the ICLEI finds its way into state law and county code. The video below reveals how it was pushed in rural Richland County, South Carolina, sold as a “Comprehensive Plan” called “Vision 20/20”. Explained by state legislator Joe Neal – a Democrat – the video provides a diagram chillingly similar to the Wildlands map, limiting development to small urban centers and

  • leaving rural communities to die on the vine.

VIDEO: South Carolina & Comprehensive Planning

If Rep. Neal’s sincere appeal in this four minute video doesn’t convince you, his full two hour presentation is available here.

The Comprehensive Plan stalled in 2003 due to citizen resistance but passed in 2009. It calls for creation of “Urban Villages… in contrast with suburban sprawl and inefficient land use.” Note the

  • negative associations with “suburban sprawl.” They will fix that.

The Plan directs that, “Throughout the suburban areas infill development (emphasis added) should be a focus in residential, commercial and industrial areas, complementing and connecting the existing sprawl pattern.

  • Housing should be varied at 4-8 units per acre…

Underutilized commercial strips and big-box retail parcels can be divided and redeveloped into smaller blocks with street extensions and

  • pedestrian-friendly designs.”

So if you moved to the suburbs to get some room, avoid urban crime and get better schooling for your kids, forget it.

  • They’re going to tell you how and where to live,

because they deem single family suburban homes “unsustainable”. The Richland County plan is similar to the description for 20 Minute Neighborhoods” advocated by the Mayor of Portland, Oregon. The official map is also eerily similar to Dr. Coffman’s.

The state of Virginia has gone all out in a similar effort. Virginia House Bill 3202, signed into law by Democrat governor Tim Kaine in 2007 with bi-partisan support, requires 67 counties and encourage low-income subsidized housing. The buzzwords change, but the description is virtually identical to Richland County, South Carolina, Portland, Oregon, and countless other towns throughout America. and cities to create “Urban Development Areas” based on decennial population growth criteria. The UDAs must be able to accommodate that growth and must include features like “pedestrian friendly” design, mixed use housing and minimum housing densities that

  • presume an urban landscape

The despotic nature of these mandates undermines the entire concept of private property, a key goal stated prominently in Agenda 21 documents. It removes decision making latitude from both property owners and local governments, and

  • ruins property values, while completely changing

the complexion and character of rural counties. Add to this the sheer lunacy of requiring vast new housing projects when mortgage foreclosures are just beginning to recover from all time high rates. Construction companies like the guaranteed business these mandates insure, a big reason

  • why they enjoy bi-partisan support.

But at what cost to our communities, our Constitution, our very way of life?

Finally, there is another even more pernicious factor that may underline politicians’ motivations to support this wholesale assault on private property. UDAs are supposed to accommodate ten to twenty years of population growth within each designated county. According to the Census Bureau, between 1990 and 2010, Virginia’s population grew by about 2 million people. Over 25 percent of that population growth was due to an influx of Hispanics. The Hispanic population represented a mere 3 percent of Virginia’s population in 1990,

  • but since then has grown 300 percent, from 160,000 people to 632,000!

In some cases, Hispanic population growth dwarfs all else. In Prince William County for example, in 1990 the Hispanic population was a modest 4 percent of the population: 9,662 people. Today it stands at 81,460, accounting for almost 40 percent of total population growth in the county! Between 2000 and 2010 Chesterfield County grew by 56,000 people. Of that total, 15,247, almost 30 percent, were Hispanic. For comparison, the white population only increased by 16,507 people. Whites represented 77 percent of the total population in 2000, Hispanics only 3 percent. The Hispanic population growth rate in Chesterfield County between 1990 and 2010

  • was over 800 percent.

These growth rates cannot be accounted for by births. Nationwide, the Hispanic population has grown by about 25 million since 1990. There are at least 12 million illegals in the U.S. currently, mostly Hispanics. So at a minimum, about half of the growth rate in the U.S. Hispanic population since 1990 is due to illegals.

By demanding UDAs in counties with high population growth rates, the

Doing so will change not only the character, but the voting preferences of its rural counties. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who will get the majority of those votes if the Democrats manage to pass an amnesty law. With the various vote fraud strategies being employed by leftists nationwide,

  • amnesty may not even be necessary.

If they succeed here, redistricting will become irrelevant.

This is another covert strategy embedded in Agenda 21, perhaps the most dangerous of all, that has so far flown completely under the radar. Although Carroll County’s actions were not related to illegal immigration, the threat of dense low-income urbanized development around their rural towns

Rothschild said, “They talk about sustainability promoting ‘healthier and better balanced’ neighborhoods. But “healthy and better balanced” in the sustainable development context

  • means equally distributed.

The practical result is that the county is burdened with people with

  • no pattern of personal responsibility,
  • people who do not share the values of the community,
  • who have done nothing to contribute to its character or development and

thus no vested interest,

  • all for the sake of ‘equity.’

The true underlying purpose, however, is to shift voting patterns from right to left.”

The Carroll County commissioners have taken a bold step in publicly calling out the ICLEI and Agenda 21, but their work has just begun. “We have our own rural agricultural diversity and it is on the endangered species list.” Rothschild quipped.

This is an issue custom made for Tea Parties. Agenda 21 is being implemented at the state and local level, where citizen activists have the most leverage. Tea Parties nationwide need to get behind this effort and bring the dangers of Agenda 21-based planning dogma to the attention of state and local governments everywhere.

  • It is critical to educate, support and encourage

sympathetic legislators at all levels of government and work furiously to oust legislators and bureaucrats who, for whatever reason, refuse to abandon this evil agenda.

Note: Part III was going to discuss the de-population movement, but this breaking story took precedence.

  • De-population will be covered at a later date."
------------------------------------------------
Reference: "Lord Monckton's Mexican Missive #3," "The central intent of The Process no longer has anything to do with the climate, if it ever had.
  • The objective is greatly to empower and still more greatly to enrich the international classe politique at the expense of
  • the peoples of the West, using the climate as a pretext."...
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2/21/11, "Green economy needs 2% of every nation's income, says UN," UK Guardian, Fiona Harvey
---------------------------------------------------

2/23/11, "Susan Rice Skips Libya Meeting," Huffington Post, Richard Grenell (see paragraph 6, re emphasis on 'sustainability')

------------------------------------------------------
Nobody talks about global warming anymore...
-----------------------------------------------

9/23/10, "Houston challenges buildings to get going on green," Houston Business Journal

Houston is an ICLEI city. Article says $3 million US taxpayer stimulus dollars went to a 'green' program in Houston. ICLEI is a UN global warming NGO and is funded by Soros (top page 3 pdf). ICLEI is key to UN grifter/hedge fund types like NYC Mayor Bloomberg. Ercot is on EPA (global warming) eGrid. ICLEI is in 600+ US localities. As Soros is quick to point out America is in decline. ed

---------------------------------------------

1/7/11, "9 Cities and Counties Selected to Help Design Sustainability Performance Management Online Platform for STAR," Construction Adviser Today

"ICLEI is developing the STAR Community Index in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council, National League of Cities, and Center for American Progress in collaboration with more than 150 sustainability experts and organizations from a diverse group of

  • federal agencies,
  • cities and counties,

  • national associations,

  • non-profit organizations, and

---------------------------

Agenda 21 is not a conspiracy, it actually exists. Presidents including so-called Republican George H.W. Bush signed executive orders implementing it. It is overwhelming. It is tedious. It is daunting to even think about. These are common descriptions of Soros-backed projects.

7/2/11, "Agenda 21: Conspiracy Theory or Real Threat?" Townhall, Rachelle Alexander

----------------------------

7/6/11, Following is a list of Agenda 21/Sustainability files mentioned in a Free Republic comment. I haven't checked them out, but they might be useful. ed.

"Nachumlist-Agenda 21"



.