Watchman Newsletter

Climategate reveals ‘the most influential tree in the world’

Telegraph UK (Link) - Christopher Booker (December 5, 2009)

Coming to light in recent days has been one of the most extraordinary scientific detective stories of our time, bizarrely centred on a single tree in Siberia dubbed “the most influential tree in the world.” On this astonishing tale, it is no exaggeration to say, could hang in considerable part the future shape of our civilisation. Right at the heart of the sound and fury of “Climategate” – the emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia – is one story of scientific chicanery, overlooked by the media, whose implications dwarf all the rest. If all those thousands of emails and other documents were leaked by an angry whistle-blower, as now seems likely, it was this story more than any other that he or she wanted the world to see.

To appreciate its significance, as I observed last week, it is first necessary to understand that the people these incriminating documents relate to are not just any group of scientists. Professor Philip Jones of the CRU, his colleague Dr Keith Briffa, the US computer modeler Dr Michael Mann, of “hockey stick” fame, and several more make up a tightly-knit group who have been right at the centre of the last two reports of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). On their account, as we shall see at this week’s Copenhagen conference, the world faces by far the largest bill proposed by any group of politicians in history, amounting to many trillions of dollars.

It is therefore vitally important that we should trust the methods by which these men have made their case. The supreme prize that they have been working for so long has been to establish that the world is warmer today than ever before in recorded history. To do this it has been necessary to eliminate a wealth of evidence that the world 1,000 years ago was, for entirely natural reasons, warmer than today (the so-called Medieval Warm Period).

U.S. already $292 bln in the red this year - CBO

Reuters (Link) - Andy Sullivan (December 4, 2009)

The U.S. government racked up a gaping shortfall in the first two months of this fiscal year after posting a record budget deficit last year, congressional analysts said on Friday.

In October and November, the government spent $292 billion more than it took in, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said.

That was even worse than the same period last year, when the government was on its way to posting a record $1.4 trillion deficit for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

The federal budget has been battered by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, as tax revenues have plunged and spending on safety-net programs like unemployment insurance have skyrocketed.

The budget deficit was $176.4 billion in October, according to Treasury Department records, and the CBO estimated the deficit for November will have come in at $115 billion.

The CBO gave its figures in billions of dollars and said numbers may not add up to the totals because of rounding.

Receipts totaled $132 billion in November, the CBO estimated, down 9 percent from the same month last year. That was partly due to new legislation that gives increased tax write-offs to corporations.

Outlays were down $23 billion from a year earlier, the CBO estimated, as the government spent less on federal programs to stem the financial crisis.

Iran to Palestinians: We are prepared for war

Monsters & Critics (Link) (December 4, 2009)

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili met with radical Palestinian factions in Damascus and told them his country was prepared for any military strike against it, an official said.

Speaking with the German Press Agency dpa on condition of anonymity, the Palestinian official said Jalili met with members of the Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and Khaled Meshal, political chief of Hamas.

The visiting Iranian official, who met the factions at the embassy in Damascus, said his government continued to support the 'resistance,' or the armed battle against Israel, and was determined to push ahead with its nuclear ambitions.

Tehran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful, but Western officials remain concerned.

Jalili was also said to have met with Hussein Haj Hassan, a deputy secretary-general of the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Earlier Thursday, the Iranian envoy had a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Asad.

Intel’s experimental chip to change the face of processing?

The Tech Herald (Link) - Stevie Smith (December 3, 2009)

Intel Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of computer processors, has this week whipped the covers off an experimental single-chip Cloud Computer platform intended for scaling on-chip performance, communication and power consumption for decades to come.

The chip is particularly noteworthy for carrying the most Intel Architecture (IA) computing engines ever integrated onto a single CPU by the Santa Clara-based giant. And, while it boasts 48 cores – up to 20 times more than inside current Intel Core processors – the Cloud Computing chip only consumes as much electricity as two standard household light bulbs.

According to Intel, the long-term research goal connected to its experimental chip “is to add incredible scaling features to future computers that spur entirely new software applications and human-machine interfaces.”

In terms of the technology’s scheduled arrival in the mass market, Intel has said the company plans to engage both industry and academia in 2010 when it shares more than 100 of the forward-looking processors in order to enable more widespread “hands-on research” in developing software applications and programming models.

‘Iran building terror network in South America’

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Hilary Leila Krieger (December 3, 2009)

The Argentinean prosecutor who ferreted out Iranian links to Argentina’s largest terror attack warned Wednesday of Teheran’s growing terror network in Latin America.

“The Iranians are moving fast,” assessed Alberto Nisman, who has secured Interpol backing for the arrest of several Iranians, including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, for ordering the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community offices in Buenos Aires. “We see a much greater penetration than we did in 1994.”

He said that Iran, particularly through Lebanese proxy Hizbullah, has a growing presence in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, using techniques it honed in Argentina before the country took measures to counter Teheran following the AMIA bombing.

He described sham operations involving taxi drivers, who conducted surveillance without arousing suspicion; fake medical school students, who could stay in the country for many years without raising eyebrows; and business fronts that helped funnel cash to operatives.

Meanwhile, the Iranians cultivated ties at the local mosques to search for people who could be radicalized.

Researcher: NASA hiding climate data

The Washington Times (Link) - Stephen Dinan (December 3, 2009)

The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data.

Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s.

“I assume that what is there is highly damaging,” Mr. Horner said. “These guys are quite clearly bound and determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this.”

The numbers matter. Under pressure in 2007, NASA recalculated its data and found that 1934, not 1998, was the hottest year in its records for the contiguous 48 states. NASA later changed that data again, and now 1998 and 2006 are tied for first, with 1934 slightly cooler.

Beware the winds of December

Asia Times (Link) - Alastair Crooke (December 2, 2009)

While America has been absorbed by the Afghan election imbroglio, a less-noticed event slid into place in the Middle East. It is less dramatic than President Hamid Karzai’s near removal; but this event tilts the strategic balance: Turkey finally shrugged off its United States straight-jacket; stared past any beckoning European Union membership; and has fixed its eyes toward its former Ottoman Asian and Middle Eastern neighbors.

Turkey did not make this shift merely to snub the West; but it does reflect Turkey’s discomfort and frustration with US and EU policy - as well as resonate more closely with the Islamic renaissance that has been taking place within Turkey.

This “release” of Turkish policy towards a new direction - if successful - can be as significant as the destruction of Iraq and the implosion of Soviet power was, 20 years ago, in “releasing” Iran to emerge as one of the pre-eminent powers in the region.

In the past months, a spate of new agreements have been signed by Turkey with Iraq, Iran, Syria and Armenia, which suggest not just a nascent commonality of political vision with Iraq, Iran and Syria, but more importantly, it reflects a joint economic interest - the northern tier of Middle East states are in line to become the principal suppliers of natural gas to Europe - thus displacing Russia as the dominant purveyor of gas to central Europe. In short, the prospective Nabucco gas pipeline to central Europe may gradually eclipse the energy primacy of Saudi oil.

Hezbollah, Iran May Get ‘Arm’ Inside U.N. Security Council

Fox News (Link) - Ben Evansky (December 2, 2009)

On Jan. 1, 2010, Hezbollah and its de-facto ruler Iran could have a direct line to the Security Council and gain access to all the confidential information to which Security Council members are privy.

In October the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted for Lebanon to be the Asian bloc’s new non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for a 2-year term.

Earlier today the Lebanese Government endorsed Hezbollah’s demand allowing it to keep its huge weapons arsenal. In doing so the Lebanese government is able to maintain its shaky unity government in which Hezbollah, a designated terrorist group by the U.S. state department, holds two ministries.

Critics worry that the Lebanese will essentially be sitting on the Security Council while ignoring Security Council resolutions that call for the disarming of armed militias, in other words Hezbollah.

EU Foreign Policy Chief Solana Quietly Steps Down

Sofia News Agency (Link) (December 1, 2009)

Javier Solana has retired from his position as the EU foreign relations chief as the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect, leaving his successor a mixed legacy.

He has long been acknowledged as a master of quiet international diplomacy. In the 10 years he spent in the job, he transformed the EU’s common security and foreign policies, building up a body of military experts and diplomats who coordinate the work of over 20 crisis relief missions in places from Kosovo to the Gulf of Aden.

He had personally acted as the EU’s spokesman and negotiator in some 600 delegations. With limited support from EU member states, he relied on his personal charm and energy to win the confidence of leaders in Balkan, post-Soviet and Middle Eastern countries.

Human rights campaigners, however, have had reservations about Solana’s achievements. He had been criticized for concentrating on conflict resolution in Europe and the Middle east at the expense of problems in China and Russia. He had even been accused of being too pragmatic in the face of power.

In his time as NATO chief, Solana agreed to the bombing of Serbia in 1999. He supported the Iraq war in 2003, and in 2005 blocked an EU campaign to refer Sudan to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Human Rights Watch advocate Lotte Leicht has assessed Solana’s human rights record as mixed. “In terms of quiet diplomacy, he has probably performed quite well. But in terms of public diplomacy, he has not,” she has stated.

Commentators and critics have already begun to speculate on how Solana’s successor, the little-known Catherine Ashton, will carry out her new role. They agree, however, that Solana will be a tough act to follow.

Unfurling the False Flag: Is a 2nd Revolution Taking Shape?

The Omega Letter (Link) - Jack Kinsella (December 1, 2009)

Like everyone else, I’ve been watching the political kabuki dance unfold over the past year with a mixed sense of dread and horror.

There was a general sense of agreement that whatever is going on with the economy, it appears to be deliberate. Where there are two possible course of action, the administration’s choice always seems to be the one most obviously wrong.

Joe Biden’s “gird your loins” speech from the campaign trail about how Obama is going to be tested, and how it is going to look like he’s got it exactly backwards keeps playing in my head. . .

“Mark my words,” said Candidate Joe Biden last October in Seattle. ”Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.

“And he’s going to need help . . . to stand with him. Because it’s not going to be apparent initially; it’s not going to be apparent that we’re right. So gird your loins.”

Everyone dismissed it at the time as one of Joe Biden’s gaffes -- and therefore, not worthy of further comment.

But I always suspected that it was more a case of Biden inadvertently blending facts he heard during a long-range strategic planning session into a stump speech.

Shalev slams UN ‘Palestinian solidarity day’

Ynet News (Link) - Yitzhak Benhorin (December 1, 2009)

Israeli ambassador tells UN its tradition of marking November 29, which Israel sees as date legitimizing its independent existence, as day of mourning for Palestinian people is harmful to peace process.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, condemned the global organization’s tradition of marking November 29, the date on which the UN approved its partition plan in 1947, as an occasion of “solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

Shalev’s speech Tuesday before the General Assembly was heard by a vast majority of representatives of Muslim countries, who took advantage of the event to condemn Israel in various ways. Shalev said during her speech that the hostility towards Israel fostered by the UN event was harmful to peace negotiations in the region.

Shalev opened her speech with a famous quote. “33 for, 13 against, 10 abstentions. The resolution is approved. Those were the words at Lake Success on November 29, 1947 that announced the United Nations General Assembly adoption of resolution 181. Those were the words that conferred international legitimacy on the creation of two states for two peoples,” she said.

“Yet the Arab side within the (British) mandate territory and across the region instantly rejected resolution 181. And Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon – members of the United Nations – launched a war of annihilation against Israel together with Jordan and the Arabs of Palestine.”

Can we blame the Swiss?

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Tawfik Hamid  (December 1, 2009)

On Sunday, Swiss voters supported a referendum proposal to ban the building of minarets in their country. Official results show more than 57 percent of voters and 22 out of 26 cantons - or provinces - voted in favor of the ban. Building more minarets - in addition to the four existing ones - was seen by many Swiss as a sign of Islamization of their free country. The government opposed the ban, saying it would harm Switzerland's image, particularly in the Muslim world.

Several points must be raised in relation to this issue:

1.Can Muslims blame the Swiss people for being afraid of Islamization in their country? No, especially while the entire world sees the inhumane applications of Islamic law (Shari'a) wherever it is implemented. It should come as no surprise that the Swiss people don't want a system that even today practices discrimination against women, gays and minorities in the name of religion. The vivid images of stoning women and hanging gays in the Muslim world should make any sane individual inclined not to allow such an intolerant system to grow in his country under the banner of freedom of religion.

'Don't call Jerusalem Palestinian capital'

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Herb Keinon (December 1, 2009)

Sweden's attempts to insert language into an EU resolution on the Middle East that would recognize east Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent Palestinian state harms European efforts to play a significant part in mediating between Israel and the Palestinians, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued Tuesday morning.

The statement followed a Haaretz report that the Swedes were pushing a resolution that will be discussed at a monthly meeting of EU ministers next week in Brussels that would officially call for the division of Jerusalem.

According to the Foreign Ministry statement, there is nothing new in the resolution.

However, as one Israeli diplomatic official pointed out, what is maddening from an Israeli view point is that the call for east Jerusalem to be the capital of an independent Palestinian state is not coupled with a call to recognize west Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

"This disrupts the balance," the official said, adding that the resolution is being pushed forward by the Swedes, who hold the rotating presidency of the EU, without any prior coordination with Israel.

EU to recognize East Jerusalem as capital of Palestinian state

Haaretz (Link) - Barak Ravid (December 1, 2009)

European Union foreign ministers are expected to officially call next week for the division of Jerusalem, to serve as the capitals of both Israel and Palestine. A draft document authored by the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, Sweden, and implying that the EU would recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood, has been obtained by Haaretz.

Jerusalem is waging a diplomatic campaign to keep the EU from issuing such an endorsement, but diplomats close to the EU deliberations believe it is virtually inevitable.

EU foreign ministers are scheduled to meet on December 7 for a two-day meeting in Brussels on the peace process, after which a statement outlining the body's Mideast policy is expected.

The Swedish draft represents the first official EU articulation of a solution for one of the core issues of the final-status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Nasrallah rages against ‘hegemonic’ US

Ynet News (Link) - Roee Nahmias (November 30, 2009)

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah laid out his political platform Monday during a speech filmed by closed-circuit cameras. The platform promotes armed battle against Israel and the US, as well as all of the latter’s protectorates.

“We see the US as a power that aims to impose hegemony in the region,” Nasrallah explained. “The Islamic resistance movement in Lebanon aims to fight this hegemony and the (Israeli) occupation.”

He said the US has been treating the globe as a market it aims to control, and that it was waging “a strategy of unlimited expansion.”

“The Bush administration found in September 11 a chance to impose his influence, with the excuse of a war on terror,” the Hezbollah leader said.

“He tried to create a parallel between terror and resistance. There is no doubt that American terror is the source of all terror in the world. This administration gave itself the right to embark on a war of destruction which does not distinguish between one man and the other.”

Growing back a lost limb

Israel21c (Link) (November 30, 2009)

An Israeli researcher has developed a biologically active  ‘scaffolding’ of soluble fibers which could be used to regenerate lost or damaged bone and tissue.

If a lizard loses its tail, it grows right back, but for human beings a lost limb can never be replaced. Now, however, thanks to breakthrough research from Israel, we may one day be able to regenerate lost or damaged human limbs as effectively as a lizard replaces its tail.

Prof. Meital Zilberman of Tel Aviv University has developed a new biologically active  ‘scaffold’ made from soluble fibers, which could be used to help humans replace lost or missing bone or tissue.

The artificial and flexible scaffolding releases growth-stimulating drugs to the place where new bone or tissue is needed. It connects tissues together in much the same way as scaffolding is used to surround an existing building when additions to that building are made.

With more research, says Zilberman, it could also serve as the basic technology for regenerating other types of human tissue, including muscle, arteries, and skin.

“The bioactive agents that spur bone and tissue to regenerate are available to us. The problem is that no technology has been able to effectively deliver them to the tissue surrounding that missing bone,” explains Zilberman of the university’s Department of Biomedical Engineering.