It seems the "settled" debate about Anthropogenic Global Warming isn't so settled after all.

More questions continue to be asked by scientists about the still unproven theory that climate change over the past 100 years or so has been driven entirely by human activity. Some cling to AGW as if it were their raison d'être and anything that puts it into question will not be tolerated.

Reading the comments in the op-ed linked above, the AGW faithful are in a full uproar, calling skeptics "deniers", like those who deny the Holocaust ever took place. But skeptics are just that, skeptics. They want someone to show them irrefutable proof that global warming is caused only by humans. So far AGW proponents can't. They can show some data (some of it carefully selected while that which disputes their claims is ignored or marginalized as 'not important to the debate'), but data in and of itself isn't proof. Skeptics demand such proof, particularly before we end up spending trillions of dollars on a 'fix' that, by the AGW supporters own admission, will have little effect on the global temperatures between now and 2100.

The faithful resort to repeating the same mantra over and over again - The science is settled. The science is settled. The science is settled. - as if this will somehow make it so. They also repeat long discredited 'evidence' for the same reason. Wild claims are made, such as "90% of scientists agree that global warming is happening and that we are the cause," but they can never tell us where that number came from. Or with some digging (ain't Google great?), it's found that the number comes from a little known survey that covers a very small percentage of scientists that are already known to be in the AGW camp while ignoring those outside that group, or the 'scientists' are involved in fields that are in no way related in any way, shape, or form to the study of climate and the forces that can affect it (how is it a 'political' scientist's opinion is given the same weight as a climatologist, geologist, or physicist?). The faithful commenting to the op-ed resort to name calling, character assassination, ad hominem attacks, straw man arguments, and the la-la-la defense - "I'm not listening! La-la-la-la-la-la...." But they won't debate the merits of their case, aren't willing to admit it's possible they are wrong, and aren't willing to question their own dogma. They point to the 'consensus of experts' as that's all that's needed to end the debate, to prove the theory of AGW. But consensus is meaningless when it comes to science because science is rarely about consensus. To paraphrase Albert Einstein: "It doesn't matter if 10,000 scientists agree with me. All it takes is one to prove me wrong."

I've come across quite a few actual scientists involved with climate studies in related fields, and almost all of them agree that there's a good reason to remain skeptical. It comes down to this: the AGW camp hasn't done its homework. There are too many factors they've chosen to ignore that have an even greater effect on Earth's climate than any carbon dioxide generated by we puny humans. Many of the models being used as proof are one dimensional, giving far too much weight to carbon dioxide as the driver of global temperatures. None of the models being used have been able to predict what the climate would be like in the 70's, 80's, or 90's using valid data from the late 1880's forward (the models didn't even come close). So how can anyone give any credence to predictions about climate in 2100 using those same models?

So the debate rages on and is gathering steam.

I promised myself I wasn't going to say this again, but I lied.

I...TOLD...YOU...SO.

The questionable sale of Verizon wireline assets in northern New England (Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont) to FairPoint Communications was something I was against from the beginning. The price tag was too high and FairPoint was buying into an operation that was many times its size, but an operation that was already suffering a decline in customers as they fled to wireless (cell phone) or digital phone services provided by the cable companies because they were far cheaper, more convenient, or both. That decline accelerated after FairPoint took over operations and quality of service declined.

Now unless FairPoint can renegotiate its loan terms it won't be able to make the interest payments due this October. This could force them into bankruptcy.

Fairpoint Communications could file for bankruptcy before the end of the year, if its debt holders don't agree to allow the company to postpone interest payments, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The North Carolina telecommunications company, which took over Verizon's landline phone network in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, has faced continual service, technical and financial problems. According to the filing, the company does not expect it will be able to pay the interest due in October on $530 million in loans. The SEC filing, submitted Wednesday, asks the company's lenders to exchange their notes for new loans that would give FairPoint more time to repay.

Prior to the sale in April 2008, the utility regulators of all three states questioned the original $2.7 billion sale price agreed to by Verizon and FairPoint, saying it was too much for the assets being sold. The sale price was renegotiated to just above $2.1 billion, a value that many believed (including me) was still too high. Financing also hit a snag when interest rates for the loans climbed from 8% to over 13% just days before the sale, making the costs higher.

This sale has been a bad deal for the consumers right from the beginning. FairPoint promised deployment of broadband technology to areas not covered by any kind of broadband services. Unfortunately they chose to use DSL, a technology that is already considered to be obsolete because it cannot provide the bandwidth necessary for many present and future broadband services. Other technologies have already passed them by, particularly wireless.

My mother-in-law recently subscribed to Verizon's Wireless Broadband service, which became available in her rural town (population ~700) late last year. FairPoint hasn't deployed DSL there yet and isn't likely to any time soon. They're having trouble enough trying to maintain telephone service in the area, let alone deploy DSL. She has connection speeds that are faster than FairPoint's DSL service in a lot of towns presently being served by them.

FairPoint's financial problems do not bode well for the consumer, particularly if they end up filing under Chapter 11. I expect they'll end up selling of some of the assets they bought from Verizon. Perhaps Verizon will buy them back, specifically the FiOS FTTH services in southern New Hampshire and southern Maine, making Verizon a direct landline competitor of FairPoint. (Verizon is already a phone service competitor through Verizon Wireless).

(Cross-posted to One Voice In Gilford)

I find the hypocrisy of the Obama Administration has reached new heights, particularly in regards to the arrest and exile of Honduran President Zelaya by the Honduran Army.

The media has called it a military coup. But it was the Honduran government following Honduran law and the Honduran Constitution, keeping democracy alive in a nation that had come under the power of a nascent Hugo Chavez.

Zelaya was not deposed on a whim of the Honduran Supreme Court. He was warned that his efforts to subvert the constitution in order to become a long-term president (maybe President-For-Life) would not be tolerated. More than once he tried to dismantle the government institutions that ensured the laws of Honduras would be followed. More than once he tried to replace army officers with those that would be loyal to him and not Honduras. When he tried to hold an illegal referendum (with the help of Hugo Chavez, dictator of Venezuela and a close ally of Zelaya), the court acted, ordering his arrest.

That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. (Emphasis mine - ed). A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

So a president fancies himself above the law, tries an end run around the constitution, and is arrested for breaking the law. How is this a coup? It certainly is allowed under the Honduran Constitution. Nowhere does it say in their constitution that they must sit quietly while their president tries to make himself President-For-Life and turns their country into a clone of Venezuela or Cuba.

Neither Obama nor Secretary of State Clinton should be condemning the moves by the Honduran government to ensure democracy stays alive in their country. But then again, Obama is on overt socialist and sympathetic to Marxist ideology (by his own admission).

Yesterday was BeezleBub's first day back at the farm after his week long post-school vacation down at the WP In-Laws. From now on most of his days will be filled with farm work, something he actually enjoys. At least he'll be inside one of the greenhouses today, staying out of the damp weather that has descended upon us yet again.

We've had all of two real days of summer weather this past week, with the rest of it resembling early to mid May: cool temps, lots of rain.

I don't think we'll make it out on to the lake today considering the forecast.

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You know America's screwed when even the Europeans are looking upon Obama's planned spending and social programs with alarm.

This proves to me that Obama and his advisors really haven't an effin' clue about how economies work and where all the money actually comes from.

(H/T Instapundit)

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On a related note, it appears Obama is ignoring the lessons of California, New York, and New Jersey, three states that tried living the tax and spend lifestyle, but in the end failed. Now Obama is espousing the same kind of tax and spend lifestyle for the entire nation. Does he really think he can pull off what others have tried and failed to do?

Of course he does. And he'll fail, just like they did. The only problem is that he'll take all of the rest of us with him when the US goes bankrupt.

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The Obama Administration is showing its arrogance towards our allies, particularly the Germans. As an article in Der Spiegel illustrates, the Germans don't have a very good impression of Obama or his staffers, and rightfully so.

(H/T Rachel Lucas)

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Barney Frank is still trying to sell the idea that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should loosen their lending standards for those wanting to buy condos. Isn't this how we got into trouble with the housing bubble to begin with?

A reminder: Definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting the results to be different this time.

I'd say that pretty well sums up Barney. It also applies to President Obama (see above).

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The TaxProf points us to a study that shows high taxes tend to cause small business bankruptcies. Seeing how my home state of New Hampshire has just imposed taxes on over 45,000 small businesses for the first time, I expect many of those barely holding on and making a small profit during these tough times will be forced into bankruptcy, courtesy of the state legislature.

Deb and I own a small business and with the taxes we will now have to pay we will see our small profit disappear. We'll be lucky if we break even unless Deb stops drawing a salary. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of owning a small business? It goes to show you that far too many legislators at state and federal level really don't understand where the money actually comes from, or that they really don't care.

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Is the honeymoon between Obama and the press over? It would appear so.

One job of journalists is, to borrow a horse racing phrase, to "call the turns" of developing news. Yesterday, the White House press corps called the end of the Obama honeymoon.

By peppering the President with forceful questions on Iran and other big topics and by challenging some of his slippery answers, reporters captured the changing tone in the country. Like the end of a real honeymoon, blind infatuation is giving way to a more accurate view of reality.

Not that there won't be members of the MSM that will still carry water for Obama, but for the most part members of the media won't be looking the other way or letting Obama get away with giving non-answer answers.

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Skip at GraniteGrok reminds us that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, particularly when it comes to socialism. That certainly hasn't stopped our Socialist-in-Chief from trying to make America into yet another socialist hell, much like the America in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

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Neoneocon gives us a preview of how well Obamacare will work and what it will actually cost by looking at how well RomneyCare (Obamacare Lite) is working in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.

We really don't want to go there, particularly in light of the problems with the UK's National Health Service and the over $3.6 billion in negligence claims filed against the NHS. Should we duplicate the NHS in the form of Obamacare, I would expect negligence claims would total in the hundreds of billions of dollars (we being the litigious society we are).

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How is it Obama thinks he'll get his way on Cap-and-Trade (Waxman-Markey)? It's simple.

He think's you're stupid.

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Obama is showing more of his socialist sympathies when he condemns the actions of the Honduran Army in ousting and exiling Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

Zelaya was trying to force passage of a constitutional amendment that would made him President-For-Life, much like his left-wing socialist ally Hugo Chavez. The Honduran Supreme Court had already ruled Zelaya's actions illegal.

Wow, the Obama administration springs immediately into action to succor a wannabe Marxist dictator, yet Beloved Leader Barack couldn't find it in his heart to say a few "just words" when Iranians were dying in the streets under the thumb of the mullahs.

That's because he really doesn't believe in freedom for anyone but the elite, meaning him and his devoted followers.

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Rachel Lucas feels the same way I do about the outpouring of grief over the death of Michael Jackson.

It is pathetic how the media is fixating on Michael Jackson. Forget Iran, forget everything that truly matters to the future and well-being of millions if not billions of human beings. The King of Pop has died! OMG! Honestly it makes me want to throw up.

Imagine what could be accomplished in this world if all those people - who are out there on the streets, gathering at his house and the UCLA hospital, making signs and bringing flowers, crying, hugging each other, talking to the news - imagine if all those assholes used that time, energy, and emotion on things that actually matter.

Have you noticed how the reports and tributes to Jackson have blown just about everything else off TV? Maybe that's just what the Obama Administration wants because it takes the attention of the American people off what's going on in Congress and the White House.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where rainy weather has returned, NASCAR fans are departing, and where Monday is returning all too soon.

As Kimberly Strassel reports, the number of Anthropogenic Global Warming skeptics is growing by leaps and bounds, despite what you may have heard from the MSM.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

What is driving the growing number of skeptics? Evidence. Worldwide data that disputes or invalidates many of the clams being made by AGW proponents, and in turn, putting the various theories about AGW to the test. In this case, a test they are failing.

But that hasn't stopped the US Congress from going forward with legislation that is based upon the ever less relevant AGW theories. After all, Congress doesn't want to be confused by facts. Instead, they'll push to throw a monkey wrench into the US economy that will do nothing to abate AGW, but it will make them feel better. After all, the Left is all about feelings.

With the continuing brouhaha about whether Anthropogenic Global Warming is real or a hoax, it could be that it will be Australia that will finally end the debate, and not the way that AlGore or Dr. Hansen want it to be.

As the US Congress considers the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, the Australian Senate is on the verge of rejecting its own version of cap-and-trade. The story of this legislation's collapse offers advance notice for what might happen to similar legislation in the US--and to the whole global warming hysteria.

Since the Australian government first introduced its Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) legislation--the Australian version of cap-and-trade energy rationing--there has been a sharp shift in public opinion and political momentum against the global warming crusade. This is a story that offers hope to defenders of industrial civilization--and a warning to American environmentalists that the climate change they should be afraid of just might be a shift in the intellectual climate.

Much of this shift is due to a book authored by Australian scientist Ian Plimer, Heaven and Earth, Global Warming: The Missing Science. When a staunch global warming advocate like Australian Paul Sheehan is swayed by Plimer's book and comes to realize global warming is a crock, then it's a pretty good indication that Plimer may have more than enough verifiable evidence that disproves global warming, at least as it applies to human activity. Sheehan writes:

Much of what we have read about climate change, [Plimer] argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modeling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as "primitive."...

The Earth's climate is driven by the receipt and redistribution of solar energy. Despite this crucial relationship, the sun tends to be brushed aside as the most important driver of climate. Calculations on supercomputers are primitive compared with the complex dynamism of the Earth's climate and ignore the crucial relationship between climate and solar energy.

To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable--human-induced CO2--is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly.

But that one factor is the entire basis of AGW theory. All other factors are ignored or marginalized. Skeptics are labeled as 'deniers' or 'tools of the oil and coal companies.' No debate is possible because the so-called warmist doctrine must not be questioned in any fashion. But supporting such doctrine becomes more difficult when former supporters of AGW theory look deeper into the data and research and find it doesn't match the theory.

But things like facts don't matter much to many in the US Congress. Instead, it is feelings that matter and if they feel that global warming is the greatest danger (or the greatest opportunity to grab power), then that's all the justification they need to pass draconian measures like the Waxman-Markey "cap and trade" bill. Never mind there's no real need for it.

I watched a portion of ABC's Obama love-fest, Prescription For America.

Can you say "Handpicked, softball questions?" Sure you can.

The dead give away was the question asked by one young woman that started with an outright and verifiable falsehood: "Knowing that the health care systems in European nations are much better and less costly...."

Ask anyone in Europe if their health care is better than that available in the US and the likely answer is "no", and that's because access to a waiting list in order to be treated for what ails you is not the same as actually being treated.

The contention that US health is somehow inferior is a convenient lie being used by those wishing to make sure we end up with an inferior and ineffective single payer system, i.e. socialized medicine. It is the inefficiency of providing treatment that is the problem, not the level of care or quality of treatment that is the problem.

The American health care system is in need of reform. It's inefficient, its costs are rising at unsustainable rates and it leaves too many people uninsured. But for all of that, most Americans do get something for the fortune they pour into health care -- pretty good treatment, at least compared to the rest of the world.

Some will try to point out that the 'free market' system isn't working when it comes to medical care, but their assumption is false. For the most part health care is in no way a free market system. The various medical facilities and practices are not charging what the market will bear nor setting the prices for their services. Instead the costs of various treatments and medical procedures are being determined by insurance company or the government care program (Medicare and Medicaid) bureaucracies. Such a set up can in no way be called a free market system.

The only 'free market' medical care is concentrated in two specialties: plastic surgery and ophthalmology (specifically LASIK). Their costs have continuously gone down because health insurance doesn't pay for such surgery unless it is reconstructive, such as after traumatic injury or cancer surgery.

Another free market medical practice making inroads: walk-in medical clinics that provide basic primary medical care. They are usually located in pharmacies, large retail operations (like Walmart), or store front locations. Their costs are low because they don't take insurance. It's cash or credit card. There are also a few medical practices, mostly family medicine, that also do not take insurance. Like the walk-in clinics, they post their prices right in the waiting room. They provide basic primary medical care at low costs because they don't have the excessive costs associated with handling and filing insurance claims. (John Stossel has covered this topic a number of times.)

If Obama really wanted to reform health care, he would move to do away with health insurance except for that covering catastrophic or chronic care. But we know he won't do that because it means the government will not be able to take over the health care system.

I have to wonder why Barney Frank is still in office.

First, he torpedoes any effort by Congress or President Bush to tighten controls on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, declaring they were both financially sound even though their lending practices were sketchy at best.

We all know what happened to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Now dimbulb Barney wants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to loosen their lending standards again.

Back when the housing mania was taking off, Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank famously said he wanted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to "roll the dice" in the name of affordable housing. That didn't turn out so well, but Mr. Frank has since only accumulated more power. And now he is returning to the scene of the calamity -- with your money. He and New York Representative Anthony Weiner have sent a letter to the heads of Fannie and Freddie exhorting them to lower lending standards for condo buyers.

You read that right. After two years of telling us how lax lending standards drove up the market and led to loans that should never have been made, Mr. Frank wants Fannie and Freddie to take more risk in condo developments with high percentages of unsold units, high delinquency rates or high concentrations of ownership within the development.

Isn't this how we got into trouble in the first place? He doesn't get it, does he? He really doesn't get it.

With Obama's push for a "cap and trade" system for dealing with the Evil Human's carbon dioxide, there are some questions that must be asked.

With the onerous Waxman-Markey bill that would set up the cap and trade system, we must know what the actual effects of such a tax (for that's what it really is) will have on the US economy. After reading a number of articles, blog posts, as well as the actual language of the bill, I have to say that Henry Waxman and Ed Markey haven't really thought this through. Their bill will have more far reaching effects than they expect, including reducing the US to a Third World nation due to the overly restrictive conditions while countries like India and China won't be bound by such restrictions. But from what I've seen of Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, they really don't care as long as they can gain more control over our economy, and through it, our lives.

They do not seem to believe that energy is of any significance to our economy or our people. But the truth is it matters to all of us--to those who drive, heat our houses and run businesses, cities, towns, hospitals and schools.

The Manhattan Institute's Jim Manzi concludes that the benefits of Waxman-Markey would not be much. Historical data show that the average rate of warming in the 30 years from 1977 to 2007 was just 0.32 degree Fahrenheit per decade. The expected warming in the next hundred years is estimated to be about 0.50 degree Fahrenheit per decade, and the new bill is estimated to lower global temperatures by about 0.18 degree Fahrenheit by 2100. Manzi estimates the additional economic costs of the bill would be 0.8% of gross domestic product, while the economic benefits would be just 0.08%--so the costs would be 10 times the benefits.

Energy development and creation have been essential to America's success over the past several centuries, and they are important for America's future. But the Obama-Waxman-Markey legislation has it backwards: By reducing energy availability, their proposals would kill jobs, reduce purchasing power, shrink the economy, and raise the cost of every fuel we use.

The Waxman-Markey bill seems more like a "We've got to do something!" bill, to make it look like Congress cares about the unproven and ever more questionable theories on anthropogenic Global Warming. But it's a sham meant to separate us from even more of our money...assuming we'll be able to keep our jobs once the energy we need is no longer available.

This bill also raises another question: What if global warming is disproved and we find we're entering a decades long period of global cooling? Will Congress repeal Waxman-Markey if it turns out we've been sold a lie?

Of course not. Once the Left has control over such a big portion of our economy and our lives, they would be unlikely to give it up, nor stop pushing their agenda.

Fallen Angels indeed.

School has ended for the year for BeezleBub and he's spending a week down at the WP In-Laws before returning to work at the farm full time. I expect he and his grandfather will spend a good portion of their time together working in BeezleBub's Jeep. (Yes, he bought a 1975 Jeep CJ5 with money he earned working at the farm. As he said, "Most kids in our high school have drivers licenses but no car. I have my own car, but no drivers license...yet.")

This will be a year long restoration project, meaning that by the time BeezleBub gets his license his Jeep should be ready for the road.

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The weather has not been conducive to celebrating Bike Week 2009, with two days during the week and most of Saturday during both last and this weekend. Also, the Official Weekend Pundit Camera has not recovered from our trip to Florida. Therefore, I also have no photos of my own to show.

That sucks.

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It turns out that one of my favorite conservative members of the MSM now has his own blog. Stop by John Stossel's new digs and check it out.

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Tom Bowler offers his opinion on the Trojan Horse that is Obamacare, showing that it is merely a deception designed to move the US to a single payer medical system, also known as socialized medicine.

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Blackfive schools us, and in turn a certain US Senator from California, about respect and how the military shows respect by their forms of address for individuals. This is something I learned as a teen while a Civil Air Patrol Cadet back in the late 1960's/early 1970's. I have never forgotten.

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Bill Whittle deconstructs revisionist history in regards to the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are some people today that believe there was no need to drop the bombs on Japan, that it was immoral to drop such a horrible weapon without warning the Japanese people living there.

But they were warned 5 days before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima that they were targeted for destruction by American bombers. Dropping those bombs also did away with the need to invade the Japanese home islands, meaning over 1 million+ casualties on both sides did not occur.

As the saying goes, "Read The Whole Thing."

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Why is anyone surprised at Obama's moves, dismissing or firing anyone having the audacity to investigate his actions or the actions of his cronies or associations connected to him? After all, it's The Chicago Way.

I wonder how many of the dead will vote for him during the next presidential election? That's also The Chicago Way.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Are the days of the mullahs numbered? As protests across Iran spread even as the government forces have turned their guns on protesters, the number of protesters has increased. Unconfirmed reports also have protesters seizing weapons from police and basij and defending themselves against them.

If the protests continue to spread in defiance of the Ayatollah Khamenei's orders, a second Iranian revolution could be in the making.

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of dictators.

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One thing Congress isn't telling you about the health care bill intended to provide health insurance for the American people: Congress and federal employees will be exempt.

It should apply to everyone or no one.