The Mike Brown of Climate Change
The Mike Brown of Climate Change
Today’s Washington Post reports, “A new study concludes that rising sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes.â€
The authors, from the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, were careful to note that the “relationship between global warming and hurricane behaviour is hotly debated.”
Other scientists are more convinced of a link.
Leave it to the conservative James M. Inhofe, who oddly enough chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, to disregard the scientific debate completely. Inhofe’s spokesman said in reaction to the study, “Policy decisions should be based on sound science, and the notion that Katrina’s intensity is somehow attributable to global warming has been widely dismissed by scientific experts.â€
To which “scientific experts” is he referring?
He might mean ideologues like Indur M. Goklany, a current member of the Bush administration, who on Wednesday published a paper arguing among other things that “global warming is unlikely to be the most important environmental problem facing the world, at least for most of the remainder of this century.â€
Goklany has “represented the United States at the International Panel on Climate Change and in the negotiations leading to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.†Notably, Goklany has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and not climatology, geophysics, meteorology, or oceanography.
Considering Bush hired a former Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association to run FEMA, it’s not suprising he hired an electricity expert to advise him on climate change.
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How many more Bush officals are unqualified for their position?
Can we investiagte their qualifications?
September 16th, 2005 at 1:41 pmNor is it suprising that we have a Turd Blossom as the chief-of-stiffs. The whole bunch of them and their idiotic sycophants (Yes, Trolls–I mean you) are just flipping off the outsiders who are not privy (now that’s where most of them ought to be, and in the basement as well) to their conspiracy. When they get enough, or more likely, when the true American (not Amurkan) citizens have had enough the farce will be over. Hopefully with the bunch of them working for the Federal Government for a few years making license plates and not the licenses to steal they think they have now.
September 16th, 2005 at 1:46 pmFor more on the pseudo-science, Lysenkoism and other facades of the Bush administration, see:
“The Potemkin President.”
September 16th, 2005 at 1:50 pmEasyrider–The most significant unqualified person is the man himself: Bushie!!!!!!!!!
September 16th, 2005 at 1:54 pmScience?! Science?! We don’t need no stinkin’ science!
September 16th, 2005 at 1:55 pmUnfortunately, this is not necessarily a good example. It sounds odd, I know, but having a degree in Electrical Engineering might not make this guy unqualified (although what he’s done with the degree may, of course). Some scientists who get this degree get into remote sensing (satellite observation of the Earth) and then into climate. See, for example, Susan Avery, who was the director of CIRES at the
September 16th, 2005 at 1:57 pmUniversity of Colorado for awhile.
Global Warming, Global Schwarming
Republicans have become increasingly dominant in the cultural and political “war of ideas” that they constantly claim to be losing because of the “liberal media” and “liberal academia”. Particularly in terms of science. The counter every scientif…
September 16th, 2005 at 1:58 pmHow much incompetence and denial must we endure before we wake up to the fact that our nation is being attacked from within, and the head of the attacks lives in the White House.
September 16th, 2005 at 1:59 pmGlobal Warming… schmobal warming! Next they will refute the theory of gravity.
September 16th, 2005 at 2:11 pmNot one ounce of integrity in the whole bunch.
September 16th, 2005 at 2:22 pmA bit off topic, but read this:
September 16th, 2005 at 2:28 pmhttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9314188/#050916
I wonder when the government will realize that we have lost the race to turn global warming around?
I am reminded of Wagner’s great ring cycle Nibelungen Lied.
The last opera is Götterdämmerung – Twilight of the Gods. I think we have finally arrived at it’s last act.
I kind of find it shitso all that research about long life, and how things will be better in 50 or 100 years. WE DO NOT HAVE THAT MUCH TIME LEFT.
And then there is that insane drive to accumulate vast sums of money. I have yet to hear evidence that one can take it with them, but am sure all these GOP Fat Cats would love to try.
As I look into the future I doubt very much that we even have 20 years left for our current civilization.
It will be a long goodbye, and not a very pretty one.
Dinasours lasted 300 million years plus. Homo Sapions not even 50,000 years.
If there is a God out there, he/she has had just about enough with us and it is time to delete.
Chalk it up to: failed experiment
September 16th, 2005 at 2:29 pmWhat’s next? Bud Selig as EPA Director? Miss America for Deputy Director of the Interior? How about Ashton for Ag Secretary – hey, he’s even from Iowa!
September 16th, 2005 at 2:35 pmCome on. Are you scientists or experts yourselves? There are a number of scientists out there who dispute the link between hurricanes and global warming, including: Dr. William Gray (created the whole idea of hurricane prediction); Dr. Christopher Landsea, who recently resigned from a UN climate science panel because it was too politicized (much like this site); Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr. of Colorado State U. The list is long. Suggest you all broaden your horizons and read the recent quotes from these prominent – and real – science experts.
September 16th, 2005 at 2:59 pmTo Sharky: Inhofe may be quoting these guys, but who he has singled out is Goklany. A perusal of Goklnay’s record via the Web of Science database and scholar.google.com is not necessarily impressive. The Web of Science has 19 hits, most of which are letters to the editor of scientific journals, a common ploy by sciencewannabes to pad their pub list. There are a handful (3 or so) which are articles in essentially policy journals. The google scholar search yields almost exclusively on line, non-peer reviewed publications.
I don’t begrudge Dr. Goklany his prerogative to post policy papers. I do begrudge Sen. Inhofe for lifting an online policy paper posted at a rather obscure think tank site to be compared to a large body of published, peer reviewed scientific work.
Again to Sharky: rather than cherry pick the handful who legitimately question some aspects of the impacts of global warming, look at the VAST VAST body of literature pointing to the evidence supporting those impacts. It is a real problem, Sharky, and no amount of cherry picking will make it go away.
September 16th, 2005 at 3:08 pmcalguy – cherry-picking? Allow me to quote William Gray, one of the world’s foremost experts on hurricanes: “Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical as hell about this whole global-warming thing. But no one asks us.” Environmentalists and the media cherry-pick conclusions that support their agendas; thus the “scientific consensus” on global warming that completely ignores, for instance, the Oregon Petition, which has been signed by almost 18,000 scientists.
September 16th, 2005 at 3:18 pmCalguy is the one cherry-picking. He’s isolated one person he doesn’t agree with, makes some assumptions, and them proceeds to disregard scientists who have very valid and well-documented conclusions that oppose his beliefs.
September 16th, 2005 at 3:21 pmFor years, republicans have been clamoring for sound science to inform government decision making. Now that they have the congress and the whitehouse, what do they do? They suppress science whenever it conflicts with the goals of their base (and given their base there are a lot of conflicts.)
September 16th, 2005 at 3:21 pmSharky – you deserve a strawman alert. Imhofe’s spokesman did not say “scientists debate the influence of global warming on the number and/or strength of hurricanes” (which in my view, would have been correct, as far as it goes); he said “the notion [...] has been widely dismissed by scientific experts” (which is wrong; and again a strawman argument, since the study in question does not claim that any specific hurricane was influenced in its strength in any specific way – Imhofe’s argument is of the type “you can’t proof your lung cancer was caused by cigarettes, ergo cigarettes are no health hazard).
September 16th, 2005 at 3:22 pmcalguy,
Thanks for your articulate response to the man on the right wing. The rightwingers often confuse a scientist questioning that a particular conclusion has been ‘decided’, with the scientist believing it is probable. For instance many scientists who want further study on the connections of bigger hurricanes and global warming feel they don’t know enough about the picture to decide if this is ALWAYS true, or SOMETIMES true, or only true in some cases – but that doesn’t mean they don’t see a correlation between them, or a likely link.
This ambiguity confuses rightwingers who always need everything to be 100% black or 100% white at any given moment. Their ‘fuzzy logic’ is broken in their brain… But then again so is their entire logic ability, so why is this different…
September 16th, 2005 at 3:22 pmBill Gray has a chip on his shoulders, to say the least. I’ve seen a number of his talks at conferences over the years, and they’re always the same: he rails at everyone and then gives exceptionally hand-waving presentations. He’s not totally a joke in the meteorological community, but he is occasionally a punchline.
September 16th, 2005 at 3:25 pmChristianH,
Great post. This is otherwise known as the NahNahNah you can’t make me listen defense. It’s a child’s eye view of science from someone who either clearly doesn’t understand what science is, how it works, and is too uncomfortable with his ignorance and therefore distorts and dismisses anything that doesn’t fit his narrow uninformed agenda..
September 16th, 2005 at 3:25 pmI saw a special on Global warning on PBS and I’ve come to the conclusion it is very real. Unfornuately our currently government doesn’t believe it at all. No matter what anyone argues, it won’t mean a hill of bean as long a Republican run the government. They will deny Katrina was caused by Gobal warming because republicans are anti environment.
You could give Republican all of the evidence on the planet and they would bury their collective heads even deeper in the sand. The truth is they (Republicans) can’t handle the truth. When the planet starts burning up and it’s too late then they will want to appoint a commission to study it to tell them what they are witnessing is true.
Maybe that’s why the spend money on NASA, so they can leave us here and go to another planet. I just hope we can stop the warming after they are gone.
September 16th, 2005 at 3:29 pmhttp://WWW.plainnews.blogspot.com
Where is the consistency? Sharky is right. A long, long list of scientists — including almost the entire who’s who of the hurricane field — does not believe a relationship exists. Every time a scientist expresses doubt about the larger issue of global warming, they are dismissed as one of a “handful of skeptics” out of step with the majority (maybe 2/3rds) consensus. Yet here we have what actually IS a handful of qualified scientists (single digits) who out of step with the OVERWHELMING consensus, and their claims are accepted as unquestionable truth. Does science matter any more?
September 16th, 2005 at 3:32 pmSince you are a data geek, maybe you could present the data – i.e., point to the “almost entire who’s who of the hurricane field” who “do not believe a relationship exists” – all the while taking note of Ryan Neat’s comment number 20. And I’d also be interested in the supposed third of climate scientists who doubt that global warming exists.
September 16th, 2005 at 3:40 pmData Geek,
If you believe that the percieved recent increase in hurricanes is caused by global warming, then how do you account for the fact that there were more level 3,4 and 5 hurricanes during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Surely, there are more cars now than there were then. There may have been more pollution from factories but I think you have to conclude that what man does to the environment globally is insignificant. If man were causing the global warming, that may be occurring, then you could say that we should be able to reverse it just as easily. The earth spews far more co2 gases each year than all of mankind in total. I think liberals give man too much credit for man’s ability to change his environment.
September 16th, 2005 at 4:43 pmIf you only read reports that indicate one conclusion then you will likely believe that conclusion.
I get upset when people think locally when talking about GLOBAL warming. Often I see letters to the editor in our local paper saying “it’s been cold for week, therefore global warming is not happening”. What tools.
September 16th, 2005 at 4:46 pmRandy,
September 16th, 2005 at 4:54 pmthat must be the most convoluted post ever. First, data geek’s on your side – he thinks global warming does not cause an increase in hurricanes. Second, nobody does; rather, there is no doubt that wamer water, and hence global warming causes stronger hurricanes – the question is if that effect is significant or pales in comparison to natural fluctuation. Third, if there were more strong hurricanes (and taifunes – you have to count all tropical cyclones) in the 30s through 50s, that had nothing whatever to do with carbondioxide produced in that timeframe, as there is a time lag. Fourth, global warming is a fact – the only debate could be about what causes it (manmade or natural?). Fifth, greenhouse gases, once in the atmosphere, will remain there for quite some time; so glabal warming could continue even if we stopped burning any fossile fuels today, an unrealistic scenario. I won’t go on, as you obviously know nothing whatever about science anyway.
interesting “suppress science” comment. How about the now infamous “hockey stick” and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summary that conflicted with the text? Or the fact that during the Clinton years, climate funding initially went down — partly (although not exclusively) because some scientists that reached inconvenient conclusions had their funding cut? Yet i’m unaware of Bush doing the same thing.
To Christian H.
For the two-thirds, google the Oregon Petition (17,800 people in scientific fields) that wizofoz referenced. Numerous PhDs in every state. And the list does not include many others who express doubt.
Same thing for the hurricane experts, google that, they come up all over the place. Gray is but one of them, although he is known as the father of hurricane forecasting and is colorful, so he is often discussed by people. Look at the peer-reviewed literature on the subject.
Oh, and its Inhofe, not Imhofe. I’m always surprised so many people don’t know who the country’s Senators and Governors are or how to spell their names.
To Sharkey:
Not only Landsea of NOAA — one of the foremost hurricane experts resigned. Pielke, another one, did too.
To Ryan Neat: You claim conservatives are fuzzy people who all think 100% one way or another incabable of discerning thought, to summarize. Do you really believe painting such a simplistic picture of tens of millions of Americans as monolithic morons captures them? Sounds sort of black and white to me.
My initial point was simply that it is incredible seize on this small body of work and proclaim it proof, while dismissing without examination a much bigger body of contrary evidence in this specialty and much evidence in other specialties of research relating to climate.
It was the monolithic thinking of many of my enviro budddies that drove me to abandon my soap box in defense of the environment and actually start reading in an unbiased way what the science has to say. And I was surprised what I found.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:03 pmScience! Schmience!
September 16th, 2005 at 5:04 pmDon’t litter my brain with facts.
PBS?
I saw Big Bird on PBS but that doesn’t mean birds can really talk and blue furry things that eat cookies actually exist.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:06 pmTo Peace Lover…
Right back at ya.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:11 pmGlobal warming does not cause cat 5 hurricanes, warm water does. The atmosphere is 1% CO2. Most of that is natural. How much increase is required to effect climate change? Not “a majority” by any means.
If you’re interested in science, read Nature. And stay away from the think tanks and non-peer-reviewed journals. If you think science is bunk, then you’re free to hold any opinion.
And no, global warming is not 100% decided, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t play it safe until it is. I want to know what it would take, what standard of proof, Inhofe and his supporters require? Would a melting of the polar ice caps prove anything? A 3 foot rise in sea level? Another 10 consecutive record hurricane seasons? No conservative has yet to say. They just say “NO” to everything and don’t offer anything constructive to the debate.
And Inhofe thinks Michael Chriton is an expert, so I wouldn’t put much weight on his opinions.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:14 pm“Dubya” wins the funny award. Couldn’t stop laughing.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:16 pmTo data geek: The Oregon petition? That’s your data? Give me a break.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:18 pmActually, it seems that liberals in Washington are the ones saying NO to everything these days. No new ideas, just no no no no to anyone else who does have one.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:19 pmWell, don’t know much about Creighton, but I do know he has an medical degree from Harvard, so he probably has some literacy of scientific concepts.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:22 pmOregon petition was signed by thousands of scientists. They can read data and decide themselves.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:25 pmTo Christian H.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:28 pmDid you forget your own question? You asked about who are the scientists that don’t subscribe to your views — may not be all of them, but the Oregon Petition’s 17,800 is a start.
Funy you should mention me.
My friends Bert and Ernie were debating global warming just the other day. I told them I knew everything about global warming because I know Al Gore and Robert Redford well. Now that they dont have much to do these days, they stop by all the time and give me behind closed door power point presentations. Sounds like you all would really like them – he has lots of pretty pictures to show us!
September 16th, 2005 at 5:30 pmLook at the Wikipedia entry for Oregon petition. Follow the links. By the way: the scientists who signed the petition – most of them have nothing whatever to do with climate science. More basically, data geek claimed that about a third of climatologists does not agree with the majority on global warming. The Oregon petition does nothing to support that. An absolute number is not a ratio. Of course, if you count people with medical degrees as climate scientists, maybe you get one third…
Oh, and let me repeat: Global warming is a fact. You can discuss its cuases, nut not its existence.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:31 pm“Actually, it seems that liberals in Washington are the ones saying NO to everything these days. No new ideas, just no no no no to anyone else who does have one.”
You are right. We are tired of the republicans passing tax breaks for the rich, so the answer is now NO.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:32 pmTax breaks for the rich? Next you’ll say “lock box” and that it’s time to do away with the combustion engine. All Republicans did was knock the tax rates for all back down to what it was before Clinton gave everyone the largest tax increase in history.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:40 pmTo Christian H.
touche on ratios. of course, to have a ratio, you need to know the total number on each side. 1/3rd is impressionistic from my reading. (sue me — of all people — for brevity) and no, not all people commenting on the issue are climotologists, but that doesn’t stop proponents: how many entomologists specializing in mosquitos contributed to the UN report finding that malaria carried by mosquitos will get worse because of global warming? by why bother experts?
Anyway, gotta run, have a power point presentation i promised to give to big bird. ciao
September 16th, 2005 at 5:43 pmTo data geek:
See ya. Glad you care about data in the first place.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:50 pmNobody answered my question: What would it take to demonstrate that a) global warming is real, and b) human activity is a major contributor?
Also, along the lines of “Humans don’t have the capacity to affect the climate” I would like to know how much activity would be required? 2x present output of CO2? 10x? What? The answer is knowable.
September 16th, 2005 at 5:52 pmSharky, there have been plenty of liberal proposals on the environment, but they don’t get scheduled for floor debate. All you can offer is ridicule of your political opponents?
A medical degree does not make one an expert on climatology, fyi. What’s next? The notion that we can clone dinosaurs from fossilized tree sap?
September 16th, 2005 at 5:55 pmCyncical Ex-Hippie,
global warming is real. There is both surface data (and yes, it’s corrected for the heat island effect of cities) and satellite data showing the average syrface temperature has increased over the last 100 years, nad is still increasing. To show that human activity is a major contributor, you use computer models that predict climate, put in the starting climate of, say, a hundred years ago and the best estimate of release of greenhouse gases (human and natural) in that time span, and check to see if the predicted climate today agrees with the real one to a reasonable degree; then you repeat the computation without human effect, and compare the outcomes. In addition, the fact that CO2, for example, causes a greenhouse effect has been known for a long time (that’s simple physics).
September 16th, 2005 at 6:03 pmOops,
September 16th, 2005 at 6:15 pmsorry to cynical ex-hippie, I missed his first comment. The questions were rhetorical. My bad.
In the Senate of the United States there about 30 alcoholics. Of the 30, 28 of them are republicans. One of the biggest republican alcoholics is:
IMHOFE – Oklahoma
September 16th, 2005 at 6:18 pmI just saw the Director of the EPA interviewed. What an ass! This was a snow job with the bottom line being that if the Mayor wants to open part of the city, we will advise him, but it is his decision. The water is not drinkable. The sewers don’t function. The flood water is toxic. The muck is also toxic. As the muck dries, and toxins become airborne, the EPA will “monitor” it.
September 16th, 2005 at 6:47 pmBut it’s not his job to say the city can’t be opened.
This is the same EPA that told the people of NYC that the ground zero was ok too, and let people return too early. A 35-year veteran of the EPA (pre Bush) said first responders are still suffering the effects — some permanent.
What is the background on the EPA director – anyone know?
CH, my questions were not rhetorical, I just want to know what it would take to convince the Inhofes of the world. They talk a lot about the uncertainty of science, yet never explicitly state their standard of proof.
They can’t deny these two facts: CO2 traps heat. Warm water feeds hurricanes.
As for the “humans can’t affect the environment” I’ll repeat what was told to me by a very smart man. The highest mountain is 6 miles high. The deepest ocean is 6 miles deep. Everything in the biosphere is contained between them. Yes, it’s a large area, but it’s not very deep.
And if nature provides a 1% CO2 concentration, and we provide a 0.1%, that adds up to 1.1% which is a lot more than 1%.
The truth is, these folks have their heads in the sand for political reasons, they really don’t care what the science says.
September 16th, 2005 at 6:55 pmI don’t want to rain on too many people’s parades, but when “data geek” mentioned the Oregon petition, he crossed the line into the realm of complete make believe. I worked some members of the Union of Concerned Scientists to check the names on that list. First, the statement that was signed was hugely and intentionally ambiguous, and many of the signees have since asked their names be removed. Second, more than 90% of those names are not scientists at all, but members of various political action committees and other conservative grass roots organizations who littered the list with dubious names of children and phone book listings of medical practitioners etc. Using the list as a data source is not unlike suggesting that lying is telling the truth.
As for careful reading of the recent studies, it is important to distinguish between causation and relative values of relationship. Does global warming directly cause hurricanes? Absolutely not. Does global climate change increase the likelihood of more intense storms and greater temperature differentiating gradients in the surface of the oceans?? Yes as a factor of general oceanic increase in temp all over the planet.
The point is that it doesn’t matter to what one attributes the causation in the increase in ocean temperatures, what does matter is that human activity has contributed and continues to contribute to those changes. At some point in the not so distant future, the combined effect of failing to regulate and control the release of greenhouse gases and other human initiated thermal pollution and the various as yet to be indentified possible causes of global warming will create an atmospheric stew within which there will be little to no polar ice, loss of glaciation around the planet, increased surface water inundation along all coastlines, and other changes that will make continued human habitation extraordinarily difficult. It will make what happened in NOLA pale by comparison. Just remember to lock and load first.
September 16th, 2005 at 6:57 pmA diebold insider admits that there is an intentional hacking backdoor in their voting system.
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001838.htm
Still think this is bunk you idiots of the rightwings? You have to REALLY want to believe in your delusions to not recognize this is in fact a voting scam that has been perpetrated on the american people!
September 16th, 2005 at 7:04 pmTo sharky and all my new friends on the right: THe Oregon Petition was initiated years ago by a nonglobal warming medical scientist, and was shown to contain such illustrious names as Drs. Honeycutt, Pierce, and Jerry Halliwell (otherwise known as Ginger Spice). A more meaningful read of climate science consensus are the every-5-years IPCC reports. Read those and the scientific literature and you will see a consensus at more like 90+% that there are emerging effects of global warming due to anthropogenic gases. The 2000 IPCC report, signed off by ballpark of 2000 leading world climate scientists put global warming at 60% attributable to human influence.
Yes, you guys are cherry picking. Inhofe is an idiot who ignores real science because presumably Phillips petroleum tells him to. This is a real and serious problem, and better that we all work on meaningful ways past the fossil fuel economy than argue about what is largely settled science.
September 16th, 2005 at 7:08 pmPablo, Regarding 28 of 30 known alcoholics in government being Republicans — do you think it’s career-related? They know first hand how corrupt their party has become, who they have betrayed, who has been harmed by their programs befitting the rich INCLUDING THEMSELVES, the lies they have told and continue to tell — I am not making excuses for them, because I truly distrust about 98% of them — but I see why they might be driven to drink.
September 16th, 2005 at 7:16 pm#54 – If the Diebold insider is to be believed, we are in very seious trouble in the country. Well, that’s stupid — we ARE already in serious trouble.
September 16th, 2005 at 7:37 pmDiebold promised to deliver the election to Bush and they did it. They will do it again unless the fraud is exposed. It won’t be exposed or more importantly believed unless it is proven. An investigative journalist is going to have to become involved — one who is above reproach.
Someone suggested Greg Palast. Ron Suskind? Seymour Hersch?
Eighty percent of all Americans are not qualified for the jobs they take. They learn on their job and through experience, including trial and error, they acquire the skills needed to become efficient at what they do. Unfortunately, if one does not have the ability to recognize their own mistakes quickly and resolve them, then they must be considered incompetent for the task laid out before them.
This is where we find Mr. Brown. This is also where we find Mr. Chertoff and President Bush.
There are many Americans with skill sets that may not fit the models or job descriptions, but that does not mean they are not competent enough to be able to complete the task at hand. It is a matter balancing risk with experience which requires competency and honesty to fulfill and neither Brown, Chertoff or Bush have these traits.
The art of lying has become prevalent in business and government today. “Passing the buck†is all to common place. Unfortunately, in this case, Katrina+5 lives were at stake and lives were lost. How much blame and what type of judgment or punishment should be placed on these three individuals for their incompetence which cost lives?
Now, Mr. Chaney is a bit different. This man knows exactly what he is doing. He can not be held incompetent rather he must be held as an accessory because he did not come forward as the deeds were being done.
When it became clear to the world that a criminal act was underway, he as second in command had a responsibility to become involved when the President chose not to.
He has a fiduciary responsibility to protect American citizens in such a crises as does the President.
This was a pre meditated act of “standing down†by FEMA which cost lives. Were the orders to do so, orders that came from the top? This is what we must find out.
September 16th, 2005 at 7:55 pmSorry guys, post 58 got misdirected, should have been applied on previous Chertoff blogg.
September 16th, 2005 at 8:26 pmMarie,
It is unfortunate, but the election WAS stolen.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/2004votefraud_1142004.html
The states that didn’t use the new diebold machines had exit polls within 1% of the final tally. The more the states deployed diebold, the greater the difference between exit polls and final tally. Some states had over 14% in difference, even though the pentagon uses a measure of only 3% of a difference to GUARANTEE there was fraud. In fact there was less of a difference in the ukrainian election than there was in our election and the pentagon officially declared their election as invalid…
So in all metrics of mathematics, and politics, the election was stolen. Vanity fair even recently covered this, as have a handful of other press outlets. Most are being told to steer clear of this from their corporate masters…
September 16th, 2005 at 11:49 pmOhhh! Ginger Spice! She’s hot…must be global warming!
September 17th, 2005 at 1:25 amWhen Diebold first starte puttint out their machines they only had two buyers. Ohio and Florida.
A puke congressman by the name of Feeney, from Florida, asked a Diebold programmer if the machines could be jiggled. The programmer told him they could. Feeney, on behalf of the republican party of Florida, bought the technique from the programmer.
The machines were jiggled in the 2000 election. It all came out, but not in the MSM. In a criminal investigation the Diebold programmer gave an affadavit but nothing was ever done.
The Diebold machines, with no paper trail, is the basis of the puke conspiracy to, for all time, control the federal government. Bush was no elected president in 2004. He was handed the presidency by Ohio and Florida and the use of Diebold machines.
In one county alone in Ohio Kerry won by 30,000 votes. When the results were certified to by Blackwell, Bush had won the country by 30,000 votes. The county elections administrator gave a statement to the Federal Elections Commission, but it was ignored. The country administrator of elections took the vote from the Diebold machines and made her certification that Kerry had won by 30,000 votes. Blackwell sent in a team during the night and guess what? The next morning the machines said Bush had won by 30,000 votes.
Most of the machines in Florida and Ohio were rigged to give Bush a 51 – 49 percent of the vote, no matter what the exit polls showed. All the MSM climbed on to the bandwagon that the exit polling was drastically wrong, but folks, it was not.
Kerry won the election fair and square. Bush was declared the winner in the biggest fraud ever.
September 17th, 2005 at 10:37 amfrancis said something about already having lost the race against global warming. We don’t really know that, but that comment, i think, speaks to a deep unknowability about this whole enterprise. On a fundamental level, there is no proper experiment that can be run. There are two alternatives:
1) we curb our environmental excesses, avoid some major problems, and never really know what would have happened
2) we don’t, and we find out that in fact, it is true that we could have katrina-level hurricanes buffeting the united states every day for the rest of our lives and watch thousands die daily until the human race is completely wiped out.
There is no mystery that the experiment cannot be run. Anyone who argues against being concerned about global warming cannot, in good faith, ignore this fundamental unknowability. Is it true that the human race really could make the earth completely unlivable by accident? Well, we’ll never have compelling evidence that it is impossible. We can only have evidence that it is possible…and that evidence will come in the form of the one observation we have in this data set: the actual earth.
The conservative requirement of constantly ratcheting up the requirements for what counts as “compelling” evidence on the world-wide level that global warming is having real effects is disingenous for this fundemental reason.
September 17th, 2005 at 2:05 pmuh cynical ex-hippie basically said what i said, sorry about that.
September 17th, 2005 at 2:18 pmRyan,
September 17th, 2005 at 11:24 pmI have a question — in my state, we use a scanning machine. I have been an election judge several times, and I don’t see – on the surface – how those votes might be jiggered. I have asked at training sessions, but of course, they tell me only how secure they are.
I am under the impression that it is the paperless votes that are the susceptible ones. Is that correct? If so, then we must demand that paperless votes be illegal.
To Pablo: Who the heck cares what you think. You’re from Mexico. You got your own problems. Kerry would have set this nation back 200 years. You want him, you can have him, along with Edwards.
September 18th, 2005 at 9:14 amTo Marie:
TED KENNEDY.
On Lies? How about CLINTON.
Gimme a break!
September 18th, 2005 at 9:16 amEveryone in the country knows inhoff is a nut job.
September 18th, 2005 at 2:29 pmMarie,
The paperless voting machines are the ones that are the most susceptible because they can’t be cross checked – but the diebold ‘tally machine’ is also susceptible. What that means is that if you have a shady elections official he can change the numbers even though there are printed copies that would prove this false. This also happened in many states as well unfortunately.
The only states that didn’t appear to have significant voter fraud in 2004 were Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan, Iowa, New Mexico, Maine, Nevada, Arkansas and Missouri
And how much do you want to bet that part of the upgrade to louisiana includes the new fangled electronic voting machines that suddenly swings louisiana republican? And they’ll use the miserable excuse of ‘well we handled katrina so well’, and the mainstream press will never bother to question their propaganda…
You’re right we should press for no electronic only machines – but we should also press for tally machines that cannot be tampered with! And that would require diebold to do the right thing – and we all know that this isn’t going to happen!
Unfortunately the reichwingers are taking all of the duped conservatives, and everyone else on a ride down the lane of fascism. And many of them are either so convinced that they are winning that the refuse to accept the reality that they’re really just stealing.
Bush’s approval rating clearly shows most americans do not agree with him or his direction – and yet if they steal 2006 the idiots (and their troll soldiers) will find some way to rationalize this theft to themselves as the ‘right thing’. They honestly believe the ends justify the means – so stealing the election in order to accomplish their goals is ‘ok’… They are the most unamerican generation this country has ever raised!
September 18th, 2005 at 6:55 pm“On Lies? How about CLINTON.
Gimme a break! ”
If you think someone not wanting their personal life being dragged out into the public is equivalent to fabricating an international war based on lies – then you’re just a blithering idiot! You guys all talk about ‘morals’ and ‘what about the children’, and yet Clinton wasn’t parading in front of the children with this ‘immorality’, it took the REPUBLICANS to do this. It would be equivalent of you showing porn on the nightly news so children could see – and accusing the porn makers of corrupting minors!
You guys are just nuts! And did I mention hypocritical idiots?
September 18th, 2005 at 6:58 pm#69, Thanks, Ryan. I think I do my part as voting judge to see that voting is fair, but I can only hope nothing illegal happens. (We HAVE seen our strong R. area swing to upper-40’s toward D. so I am somewhat assured that at least my little corner is doing OK — next time it should be in the 50’s). We must work toward non-electronic balloting nationwide.
September 19th, 2005 at 12:01 amI have also thought about your scenario for Louisiana.
#70, Great retort to a nut case. The nuts will not be swayed, but your points will benefit others.
Whitehouse-commissioned National Academy of Science (NAS) study on human-induced climate change:
1st sentence: “Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising.”
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3713&method=full
Page of “signature studies” indicating that human-induced climate change is real:
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3458&method=full
September 30th, 2005 at 6:04 pmNo climatologist academic, today, dare espouse a theory that global warming is not gospel but needs studying. He will never see grant money from private or government sources. So says the Head of the MIT Department of Climotology Science (April 12, 2006 (or so)Wall Street Journal. The MIT guy stated that one degree of change since 1900, mean global temperature, is not proof of imminent calamity.
April 15th, 2006 at 3:47 pmIdelogues are not the exclusive domain of the Conservative Administration. Professors who desire grant money, speak as they are expected. Closet communists or statists seeking redistribution of wealth from North to South, from haves to havenots by decree seek Climotology salutions that accomplish their goals, Marx having failed politically, so publically.
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