The anti-capitalist theme was picked up on by Mr Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s veteran President, who is the target of Western sanctions over alleged human rights abuses.
Nothing is real in Copenhagen - not the temperature record, not the predictions, not the agenda, not the “solution”. In fact, here’s how fake it all is:
So moving. But let’s now learn more from Samantha Maiden about this former Greenpeace official from “Tuvalu”:
But the part-time PhD scholar at the Australian National University actually resides in Queanbeyan, NSW,where he’s not likely to be troubled by rising sea levels because the closest beach at Batemans Bay is a two-hour, 144km drive away. Asked whether he had ever lived in Tuvalu, his wife told The Australian last night she would “rather not comment”....
Tweet Mike Bloomberg makes the scene in Copenhagen. He'll make any backroom deal to cut the voter off at the knees. The NY mayor jumps in the sewer with the rest of the rats. photo berlingske
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On Jane Russell: "Asked why modern Hollywood is so liberal: "I think the Sixties have happened between when I was there and now. A lot of the actors and actresses, their parents were Sixties people and they just have a Democratic left wing - they flipped."
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. "Munich Olympic Massacre, September 5, 1972: Eight Palestinian "Black September" terrorists seized eleven Israeli athletes in the Olympic Village in Munich, West Germany. In a bungled rescue attempt by West German authorities, nine of the hostages and five terrorists were killed.
Ambassador to Sudan Assassinated, March 2, 1973: U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Cleo A. Noel and other diplomats were assassinated at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum by members of the Black September organization.
Attack and Hijacking at the Rome Airport, December 17, 1973: Five terrorists pulled weapons from their luggage in the terminal lounge at the Rome airport, killing two persons. They then attacked a Pan American 707 bound for Beirut and Tehran, destroying it with incendiary grenades and killing 29 persons, including 4 senior Moroccan officials and 14 American employees of ARAMCO. They then herded 5 Italian hostages into a Lufthansa airliner and killed an Italian customs agent as he tried to escape, after which they forced the pilot to fly to Beirut. After Lebanese authorities refused to let the plane land, it landed in Athens, where the terrorists demanded the release of 2 Arab terrorists. In order to make Greek authorities comply with their demands, the terrorists killed a hostage and threw his body onto the tarmac. The plane then flew to Damascus, where it stopped for two hours to obtain fuel and food. It then flew to Kuwait, where the terrorists released their hostages in return for passage to an unknown destination. The Palestine Liberation Organization disavowed the attack, and no group claimed responsibility for it. Ambassador to Afghanistan Assassinated, February 14, 1979: Four Afghans kidnapped U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs in Kabul and demanded the release of various "religious figures." Dubs was killed, along with four alleged terrorists, when Afghan police stormed the hotel room where he was being held. Iran Hostage Crisis, November 4, 1979: After President Carter agreed to admit the Shah of Iran into the US, Iranian radicals seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 66 American diplomats hostage. Thirteen hostages were soon released, but the remaining 53 were held until their release on January 20, 1981. Grand Mosque Seizure, November 20, 1979: 200 Islamic terrorists seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, taking hundreds of pilgrims hostage. Saudi and French security forces retook the shrine after an intense battle in which some 250 people were killed and 600 wounded. Assassination of Egyptian President, October 6, 1981: Soldiers who were secretly members of the Takfir Wal-Hajira sect attacked and killed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat during a troop review. Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut, April 18, 1983: Sixty-three people, including the CIA's Middle East director, were killed and 120 were injured in a 400-pound suicide truck-bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. Bombing of Marine Barracks, Beirut, October 23, 1983: Simultaneous suicide truck-bomb attacks were made on American and French compounds in Beirut, Lebanon. A 12,000-pound bomb destroyed the U.S. compound, killing 242 Americans, while 58 French troops were killed when a 400-pound device destroyed a French base. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. Kidnapping of Embassy Official, March 16, 1984: The Islamic Jihad kidnapped and later murdered Political Officer William Buckley in Beirut, Lebanon. Other U.S. citizens not connected to the U.S. government were seized over a succeeding two-year period. TWA Hijacking, June 14, 1985: A Trans-World Airlines flight was hijacked en route to Rome from Athens by two Lebanese Hizballah terrorists and forced to fly to Beirut. The eight crew members and 145 passengers were held for seventeen days, during which one American hostage, a U.S. Navy sailor, was murdered. After being flown twice to Algiers, the aircraft was returned to Beirut after Israel released 435 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. Achille Lauro Hijacking, October 7, 1985: Four Palestinian Liberation Front terrorists seized the Italian cruise liner in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, taking more than 700 hostages. One U.S. passenger was murdered before the Egyptian government offered the terrorists safe haven in return for the hostages' freedom. Egyptian Airliner Hijacking, November 23, 1985: An EgyptAir airplane bound from Athens to Malta and carrying several U.S. citizens was hijacked by the Abu Nidal Group. Airport Attacks in Rome and Vienna, December 27, 1985: Four gunmen belonging to the Abu Nidal Organization attacked the El Al and Trans World Airlines ticket counters at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport with grenades and automatic rifles. Thirteen persons were killed and 75 were wounded before Italian police and Israeli security guards killed three of the gunmen and captured the fourth. Three more Abu Nidal gunmen attacked the El Al ticket counter at Vienna's Schwechat Airport, killing three persons and wounding 30. Austrian police killed one of the gunmen and captured the others. Aircraft Bombing in Greece, March 30, 1986: A Palestinian splinter group detonated a bomb as TWA Flight 840 approached Athens airport, killing four U.S. citizens. Kidnapping of William Higgins, February 17, 1988: U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel W. Higgins was kidnapped and murdered by the Iranian-backed Hizballah group while serving with the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO) in southern Lebanon. Pan Am 103 Bombing, December 21, 1988: Pan American Airlines Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, by a bomb believed to have been placed on the aircraft by Libyan terrorists in Frankfurt, West Germany. All 259 people on board were killed. Bombing of UTA Flight 772, September 19, 1989: A bomb explosion destroyed UTA Flight 772 over the Sahara Desert in southern Niger during a flight from Brazzaville to Paris. All 170 persons aboard were killed. Six Libyans were later found guilty in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment. Bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, March 17, 1992: Hizballah claimed responsibility for a blast that leveled the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, causing the deaths of 29 and wounding 242. World Trade Center Bombing, February 26, 1993: The World Trade Center in New York City was badly damaged when a car bomb planted by Islamic terrorists exploded in an underground garage. The bomb left 6 people dead and 1,000 injured. The men carrying out the attack were followers of Umar Abd al-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric who preached in the New York City area. Air France Hijacking, December 24, 1994: Members of the Armed Islamic Group seized an Air France Flight to Algeria. The four terrorists were killed during a rescue effort. Jerusalem Bus Attack, August 21, 1995: HAMAS claimed responsibility for the detonation of a bomb that killed 6 and injured over 100 persons, including several U.S. citizens. Saudi Military Installation Attack, November 13, 1995: The Islamic Movement of Change planted a bomb in a Riyadh military compound that killed one U.S. citizen, several foreign national employees of the U.S. government, and over 40 others. Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Homeland, September 11, 2001: Two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon was struck by a third hijacked plane. A fourth hijacked plane, suspected to be bound for a high-profile target in Washington, crashed into a field in southern Pennsylvania. The attacks killed 3,025 U.S. citizens and other nationals. President Bush and Cabinet officials indicated that Usama Bin Laden was the prime suspect and that they considered the United States in a state of war with international terrorism. In the aftermath of the attacks, the United States formed the Global Coalition Against Terrorism. Kidnapping of Daniel Pearl, January 23, 2002: Armed militants kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi, Pakistan. Pakistani authorities received a videotape on February 20 depicting Pearl's murder. His grave was found near Karachi on May 16. Pakistani authorities arrested four suspects. Ringleader Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh claimed to have organized Pearl's kidnapping to protest Pakistan's subservience to the United States, and had belonged to Jaish-e-Muhammad, an Islamic separatist group in Kashmir. All four suspects were convicted on July 15. Saeed Sheikh was sentenced to death, the others to life imprisonment." from MichaelSavage.com, 11/14/09 (link goes in current website)
to avoid "adverse events," the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims.
As a senior-year psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing as a culminating exercise of the residency program.
Instead, in late June 2007, he stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, both Muslim countries, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by The Washington Post.
"It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims," he said in the presentation.
"It was really strange," said one staff member who attended the presentation and requested anonymity because of the investigation of Hasan. "The senior doctors looked really upset" at the end. "...
THAT WAS IT? Some doctors looked upset?
(Wash. Post, con't): "These medical presentations occurred each Wednesday afternoon, and other students had lectured on new medications and treatment of specific mental illnesses.
An Army spokesman said Monday night he was unaware of the presentation, and a Walter Reed spokesman declined comment.
It is unclear
whether anyone in attendance reported the briefing to counterintelligence or law enforcement authorities whose job it is to identify threats from within the military ranks."...11/9/09,
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Guardian UK, 5/26/08: "Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN's carbon offsetting programme.
A working paper from two senior Stanford University academics examined more than 3,000 projects applying for or already granted up to $10bn of credits from the UN's CDM funds over the next four years,
Governments consider that CDM is vital to reducing global emissions under the terms of the Kyoto treaty."
(WHY NOT? THE US GOVERNMENT simply ROBS ITS OWN TAXPAYERS TO THROW CASH INTO SLUSH FUNDS OF THE GLOBAL MAFIA). ed.
(Guardian, continuing): "To earn credits under the mechanism, emission reductions must be in addition to those that would have taken place without the project. But critics argue
A separate study published this week by US watchdog group International Rivers argues that nearly three quarters of all registered CDM projects were complete at the time of approval, suggesting that CDM money was not needed to finance them.
"It would seem clear that a project that is already built cannot need extra income in order to be built," said Patrick McCully, director of the thinktank in California. "Judging additionality has turned out to be unknowable and unworkable.
New York ACORN and a tangled web of affiliates own or manage nearly 1,500 housing units across three boroughs and draw in an estimated $5.7 million in rents, fees and profits from sales.
information flew back and forth between bloggers, activists and talk show hosts and the result was an authentic grass roots movement.
“The Mobs” that panicked Democratic politicians and their media press corps decry represent the one thing that a phony grass roots movement like the Obama campaign fear the most… being confronted with an authentic grass roots movement. Their campaigns against radio and TV hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck reveal that
but the only people they could find to represent them at the Town Halls were
the SEIU goons they packed the halls with. And there’s nothing like a “grass roots movement” that you have to bus in, which consists purely of people who are set to profit from your legislation.
The Republican leadership is almost as nervous, torn between seizing the moment or standing aside
to avoid being accused of “extremism”.
The same folks who thought the best way to run a Presidential campaign was by
Meghan McCain represents the future of the Republican Party
and that public opinion is determined by the op ed page of the New York Times and the Washington Post, naturally have no clue how to respond to the situation.
The Republican leadership has become detached from its base and increasingly has no idea how to connect to the concerns of ordinary Americans.
But as appealing as populist rhetoric about fiscal conservatism may be, the whole power of being a congressman rests in handing out pork.
Even Ron Paul who tried to brand himself as a leader in fiscal conservatism turned out to have his share of earmarks and family members on the payroll.
And that unfortunately is the default standard for politicians, and though some may hide it better than others, a politician is a man who works on your payroll to spend your money on behalf of his supporters, which is why expecting fiscal conservatism from congress is like expecting a lion to go vegetarian.
Politicians listen to their constituents when they say they want lower taxes, less regulation, less immigration and no NAFTA. Sometimes they even mimic the rhetoric or even get out front to lead the parade, but when they’re in the Senate cloakroom, it quickly becomes a whole different ballgame. But politicians can’t do anything except on behalf of the people—and rarely has there been such a showing of the people coming out to denounce a policy supposedly being enacted on their behalf.
The Town Hall protests tore away the philanthropic facade behind ObamaCare.
It was not some imaginary wealthy “Brooks Brothers Brigade” that went into the Town Halls,
but ordinary working class Americans who firmly and vocally said, “No Thanks” to the ObamaCare boondoggle. And that has become a major gamechanger.
Obama and his cronies were counting on fighting the Republican party.
They were counting on taking swipes at Limbaugh or Beck. They were not counting on serious public opposition. Denouncing the health care protesters as right wing extremists did not help. Trying to claim that the Obama socialist photoshop was racist was a desperate move that jumped the race card shark. By their very presence, the protests made ObamaCare controversial, and simply denouncing them was not going to be able to reverse that.
The more the media denounced them and the more SEIU thugs attacked them; the more the general public came to see ObamaCare as a controversial program.
While the Republican party may have been neutered for now, Obama finds himself in the very uncomfortable position of playing, “Obama vs the People”. The Obama Administration was counting on being able to run up the tab by the trillions with no serious congressional opposition. But while that worked long enough to subsidize UAW auto companies and bailout Obama’s Wall Street buddies, after two thirds of a year in which the economic situation kept sliding downward, the American people began grumbling about his lack of results.
Like most politicians, Obama did not understand that the voters did not put him into office so that he could run up a deficit of trillions of dollars composed of pork, giveaways
and senseless centralization.
Obama ran for office promising hope and change. The only things he delivered were payoffs to Wall Street donors and UAW union featherbedders. And just as he was about to deliver a whopping payoff to his SEIU union Marxist buddies, the whole thing collapsed because the American people reached the point where they had enough....
The State Senate assigned him credit for other people’s legislation. In the United States Senate, he ran for higher office after only a 100 days in the chamber.
Like a precocious third grader who suddenly finds himself in college, Obama had no idea how to work with congress to get legislation passed.
And the same media which sneered at McCain’s claims that he had the experience that Obama didn’t, was now forced to admit that the lack of focus and credibility at the White House level was a serious problem.
While Obama was still coasting on his “historic election”, a lot of congressmen were getting ready for their nerve-racking midterm elections. The Republicans were still shellshocked, and liberal Democrats were arrogant, but the conservative Democrats who had given their party the majority in 06 and 08, felt vulnerable. Cut out of the loop by an increasingly radicalized White House and congressionalleadership, and threatened by midterm elections that traditionally cut down seats belonging to the ruling party, they became the legislative weak point in ObamaCare. And once the Town Hall protests made it safer to do nothing, than to do something, ObamaCare hit an invisible brick wall.
Using the media, Obama squashed most opposition by established politicians,
but he has now come face to face with a vocal popular revolt at the Town Hall protests and a quieter but vaster sense of dissatisfaction by the American electorate. Republican and Independent approval is peeling away, followed by that of many Democrats, leaving the naked emperor cloaked only in his own base and without a national mandate for change. And even his own supporters are beginning to suspect that
Obama may have nothing more to offer beyond magazine covers and high minded rhetoric.
The White House has tried to fight back by targeting first Limbaugh and then Beck, demonstrating a profound contempt for the views of the grass roots opposition, which they imagine will go away if a few talk show hosts will just stop “inciting it.”
But what the left fails to understand is that if Limbaugh and Beck went off the air tomorrow, the situation would not change in any significant way.
Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are not some sort of aberrant phenomenon,
and while the Democrats occupy the executive and legislative castles, they are finding that those positions may give them power, but also invest them with responsibilities in the middle of a crisis that they are simply not capable of living up to.
Throughout it all Obama has relied on his media manufactured charisma to shield a multitude of sins. But incompetence is one sin that cannot be covered by magazine covers. In the Senate, Obama could have gotten by easily enough. As a Vice President, he could have posed endlessly for magazine covers while accomplishing nothing. But in the Oval Office, he had to deliver, and the only thing he delivered was the hijacking of America at the hands of his radical legion of czars. Now is the moment of truth where Obama faces the people, and begins to deal with the consequences of the disaster he has created, the deficit, the lost jobs and the economic crisis he tried to exploit for political gain. The case of Obama vs the People has just begun." Canada Free Press, "Obama vs the People," by Daniel Greenfield, 9/7/09, via Lucianne.com
It’s no surprise that Alpine Group tops the list, given its environment and energy pedigree. The shop was co-founded in 1996 by Richard White, former legislative coordinator for the late Sen. John Chafee (R-R.I.), who often bucked his party as an environmental champion, and by James Massie, a longtime energy lobbyist. Alpine Group’s stable of climate lobbyists includes former House Energy and Commerce Committee Democratic aide Courtney Johnson, former Senate Appropriations Republican staffer Les Spivey and
former aides to three Democratic senators — Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio — who could tip an eventual Senate vote. Alpine Group’s list of 13 climate clients includes Ford, BP America, BNSF Railway, 3M, Duke Energy and NRG Energy.
Ogilvy Government Relations — 13 clients
The firm formerly known as the Federalist Group was founded by Stewart Hall, a former legislative director for Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who opposed similarlegislation last year. Joining Hall in representing some of the biggest oil and chemical groups — the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemistry Council, as well as power companies and agriculture groups — are
Julie Dammann, onetime chief of staff to Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), and Dean Aguillen, a former senior aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Reliant Energy, Chevron, Monsanto and the National Milk Producers Federation count themselves among Ogilvy clients.
Patton Boggs LLP — 11 clients
Patton Boggs represented 10 local governments in the first quarter, in addition to chemical manufacturer INEOS. Nearing a half-century old, Patton Boggs has been the king of K Street since it eclipsed Cassidy & Associates as the highest-paid lobbying firm in 2003, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Patton is home to a pair of municipally minded climate lobbyists: Tanya DeRivi, a former adviser to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Marek Gootman,
a former adviser on community development policy and intergovernmental affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Morgan Meguire, LLC — 11 clients
This specialized firm is led by Deborah Sliz, who started her career in the late 1970s as counsel to one of Capitol Hill’s most legendary environmental advocates, the late Rep. Morris Udall (D-Ariz.). Udall’s son Mark is now Colorado’s freshman Democratic senator. Sliz’s climate clients include some of the nation’s biggest public and consumer-owned water and power utility groups. Among them are Southern California’s Imperial Irrigation District, the Tennessee Valley Public Power Association and the Northwest Public Power Association.
Another Morgan Meguire climate lobbyist, Karen Zanoff, came to the firm after serving as a staffer on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as an adviser to former Rep. Karen McCarthy (D-Mo.).
McBee Strategic Consulting — 10 clients
The client list at McBee Strategic Consulting is diverse, and so are its lobbyists. McBee's roster includes a bipartisan pair of former counsels to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee (Democrat Samuel Whitehorn and Republican Robert Chamberlin) and a bipartisan pair of former legislative aides to Washington state lawmakers.
Steve McBee worked for Sen. Maria Cantwell when she served in the House. Ashley Slater was director of legislative affairs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President George W. Bush. Her colleague Glynda Becker also served in the Bush administration as associate political director.
Ryan, MacKinnon, Vasapoli and Berzok LLP — 9 clients
The first two name partners, Thomas M. Ryan and Jeff MacKinnon, both have close ties to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Ryan was a Democratic aide and MacKinnon was legislative director to Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), who is the ranking minority member of the committee. The firm represents the
Some of the nation’s largest coal-intensive power companies, including Southern Co., Duke Energy and Energy Future Holdings, as well as coal-hauling rail company CSX, are on the climate client roster of Bracewell & Giuliani.
The so-called super-greenhouse gases are the focus of Alcalde & Fay’s lobbying work. Not carbon dioxide, but an array of gases used in refrigerators and air conditioners and called hydrofluorocarbons, which are thousands of times more potent in trapping heat in the atmosphere. A possible phase-down of these gases is one of the issues lawmakers are grappling with. Alcalde & Fay’s two lead climate lobbyists, Kevin Fay and David Stirpe, worked on regulatory controversies before, including a long-fought battle over asbestos. Now they represent the HFC manufacturer and user group the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy.
Other clients include Dow Agrosciences, American Pacific and the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute.
Colling Swift & Hynes — 7 clients
With former Rep. Allan Swift (D-Wash.) leading its climate lobbying effort, this firm has been a magnet for companies from an industry that once was key in Swift’s home state: the paper business. Clients include Rock-Tenn Co., the Newark Group, White Pigeon Paper and Smurfit-Stone Container. In addition to Swift, the team includes Louis Hengen, once an aide to former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Frances McPoland, who coordinated federal recycling and waste reduction programs in President Bill Clinton’s White House
Hunton & Williams LLP — 7 clients
While McBee nabbed two former Senate committee lawyers, Hunton & Williams landed two former Republican counsels to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Mark Menezes and Joseph C. Stanko are among the climate lobbyists
in which the court determined that the agency could regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. However, that issue is now very much in play for the firm’s climate lobbying clients on Capitol Hill,
local officials, entrepreneurs and crime gangs are suspected of collusion in the construction of lucrative wind farms before their eventual sale to multinational companies.
Italian and EU subsidies for the building of wind farms and the world’s highest guaranteed rates, €180 ($240, £160) per kwh, for the electricity they produce have turned southern Italy into a highly attractive market exploited by organised crime.
Roberto Scarpinato, a veteran anti-Mafia prosecutor in the regional capital Palermo, told the Financial Times that his investigation, which began last week, was focused on the three large provinces of Palermo, Trapani and Agrigento.
An earlier investigation into a case near Trapani in western Sicily resulted in eight arrests in February, leading to accusations of a suspected nexus between a leading Mafia family that offered money and votes in
“Operation Wind” revealed Mafia promises to local officials in Mazara del Vallo of money and votes in exchange for help in approving wind farm projects.
The Mafia suspects were alleged to be linked to Matteo Messina “Diabolik” Denaro, a fugitive clan boss on ltaly’s most wanted list.
Prosecutors suspect the hand of the Mafia in fixing permits and building wind farms that are then sold on to Italian
In an effort to assert its control over the sector, the Mafia is suspected of destroying two wind towers that were in storage in the port of Trapani after their delivery by ship from northern Europe, local officials told the FT.
A handful of people control the wind sector. Many companies exist but it is the same people behind them,”
said Mr Scarpinato, whose investigations have focused on the evolution of the Mafia into a modern business organisation.
Sicily’s Cosa Nostra is evolving and finding new business opportunities, including the renewable energy sector, by exploiting its historic grip over territory, construction and ability to corrupt local officials.
Several wind farms built by companies suspected of being linked to the Mafia have not functioned for one or two years,
which did not produce electricity,” the prosecutor said.
The regional governments in Sicily, as well as Calabria and Basilicata on the mainland, have suspended the authorisation of new wind farms in part because of suspected criminal involvement and confusion over the real ownership of the ventures.
Most, if not all, of Sicily’s wind farms began as projects by local developers, some of whom
International Power of the UK is the largest wind power operator in Italy. Others include Italy’s Enel and Germany’s Eon through its purchase of part of Endesa of Spain in 2007. France’s EDF also has assets. While the international companies knew the identity of their Sicilian developers, there is no evidence they were aware of Mafia involvement.
Although Italy is lagging badly in meeting its EU 2020 emissions targets,
International Power became the single largest operator in 2007 with its purchase of the Maestrale portfolio of mostly Italian wind farms, including five in Sicily, for €1.8bn
Italy ranks fourth in Europe in terms of installed wind power capacity." by Guy Dinmore via the Drudge Report
Organizer Mark Meckler singled out GOP opportunists who wouldn’t give him the time of day weeks ago — and then wanted to hitch their wagons to the Tea Party bandwagon at the last minute.
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MAN FREELY BUYS HOUSE NEAR RAILROAD TRACKS WHERE HOUSES ARE CHEAPER BECAUSE IT'S NOISY. THEN HE WHINES ABOUT THE NOISE, DECIDES YOU SHOULD PAY TO IMPROVE HIS CIRCUMSTANCE. APPLIES TO THE STATE OF OHIO, RECEIVES FEDERAL PORKULUS:
Greg McNeil made a request for $168,300 on behalf of his homeowners association. The project was one of 149 transportation projects the state selected to receive stimulus money - and
A report issued on the sidelines of U.N. talks in Bonn working on a climate treaty said that a flood of forest carbon credits could also slow the fight against global warming and divert billions of dollars from investments in clean technology.
"Cheap forest credits sound attractive but a closer examination shows they are a dangerous option," Roman Czebiniak, Greenpeace International political adviser on forests, said of estimates by Kea 3 economic modeling group in New Zealand.
About 175 nations are meeting in Bonn from March 29-April 8 to discuss measures for fighting global warming. Among them are ways to slow
Trees soak up carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, as they grow and release it when they are burned or rot. Placing a price on intact trees could help save forests from the Amazon to the Congo basin from logging and land clearance by farmers.
"Including forest protection measures in carbon markets would crash the price of carbon by up to 75 percent and derail global efforts to tackle global warming," Greenpeace said.
The report projected the 75 percent fall in prices, to 3.9 euros ($5.16) per tonne by 2020 from a baseline of 16.05 used in the report, under current national policies for limiting emissions.
CLEAN ENERGY INVESTMENTS
"Countries like China, India and Brazil could lose tens of billions of dollars for clean energy investments if forest protection measures are included in an unrestricted carbon market," it added.
There is so far no agreement on how to put a price on forest carbon under a new treaty. Suggestions range from carbon trading to new taxes in developed nations to raise cash. Governments aim to agree a new U.N. climate treaty in Copenhagen in December.
A European Commission report last year also said the European Union should not let industry meet its climate goals by funding forest conservation in tropical nations before 2020.
"Allowing companies to buy avoided deforestation credits would result in serious imbalances between supply and demand," it said. It said deforestation emissions were three times bigger than emissions regulated by the EU emissions trading scheme.
And New Carbon Finance analyst Aimie Parpia estimated in a report earlier this month that unlimited use of forestry could cut carbon offset prices by 40 percent by 2020.
Greenpeace's own forest proposal is to allow industrialized countries to meet a part of their emissions reduction goals by buying cheaper "tropical deforestation units" as an addition to deep cuts in domestic emissions.
These units, however, would not be tradeable on markets for industrial emissions." via Lucianne.com
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN DOESN'T BEGIN TO HAVE THE TIME TO KEEP UP WITH GLOBAL CRIMINALS--in concert with most elected officials in the Beltway-- ROBBING THEIR OWN HOUSE FROM THEM WHILE THEY WORK THEMSELVES TO DEATH. sm
George Bush's dissociated mumbling at a time when America was hanging by a thread, showed he cared nothing for Americans. He glossed over us, trashing our hard-fought for way of life, eased the way for lobbyists and profiteers in the sub-prime scandal, UN corruption, fake global warming, illegal aliens, disease and squalor previously seen in third world cesspools. He greased the skids for the final nail in the US coffin, the Obama group. As bad as Bush was, Obama is of course, much worse. (sm)
We are led [Bush said in his address] by events and common sense, to one conclusion: the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of
liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the
deepest beliefs are now one ... We go forward with complete confidence in the even triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills.
"Good intentions go awry; we blind ourselves to our own capacity for self-deception when we cast ourselves in the role of God's agents in history's battle between The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness, to cite the title of [a] book by [Reinhold] Niebuhr."
China'spolitical system is not free by Western standards, yet China poses no strategic threat to the United States. Dictatorships that support terrorism well may constitute a strategic threat to the United States, especially if they are able to employ nuclear weapons. But the United States could just as well wipe all of them off the face of the Earth through pre-emptive nuclear bombardment, or let them fight each other to exhaustion, as try to foster democracy in their midst.
It was actually a monetary one in this case. The money, the no-bid contracts, etc. that were handed out for all these foreign projects, it was Bush's intention all along. He rewarded those who financed his election, as Obama is doing today. (sm)
had it been delivered early last fall by any Republican presidential candidate.
About midway through Mr. Limbaugh's clear-headed, timely and sometimes rambunctious call to ideological arms, my BlackBerry began buzzing with elated text messages from across the Omni and across the nation.
A friend in Los Angeles e-mailed a one-liner: "Best speech I have ever seen."
My urbane father-in-law, the first person I knew who copped to listening to Mr. Limbaugh and who has been witness to most of the big events of the modern age, called it the "most thrilling thing [he's] seen on TV."...
By any measure, Mr. Limbaugh hit the ball out of the park. He may have done so for the team that, these days, many people are rooting against. But the ball did land over the fence.
On the other hand, the "drive-by media" - as Mr. Limbaugh aptly refers to his business competition and ideological foes -
Clearly taking their cues from Mr. Obama - as well as Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid - the Fourth Estate, without the benefit of a Frank Luntz focus group or an instant poll,
has escaped the left's clutches of pure media dominance.
For years, the radio kin of these underhanded online annoyances - coined by Rush as "seminar callers" - have read their Democratic National Committee-produced scripts to muddy the political waters.
TweetSoros funds infiltration of 9/11 truth, election protection,
and “independent” journalism: (This to confirm what most already know):
international hedge fund mogul and financier of “progressive” causes George Soros has been, for a number of years, infiltrating 9/11 “truth” organizations, groups advocating election reform,
and so-called “independent journalism” enterprises in order to hijack agendas and, eventually, cause the groups to collapse from within or be absorbed into larger organizations servile to Soros and his agenda.
By far, the largest group Soros and his allies has infiltrated and taken over is the Democratic Party of the United States. It now totally adheres to a corporatist line and has purged from its leadership Dr. Howard Dean and replaced him with Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, a Democratic Leadership Council adherent.
The Soros faction and its allies has also seen to it that Bill Richardson, Caroline Kennedy, and others who represent the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” have been shut out of the Obama administration....
Soros’ operations, according to our sources, involve his Open Society Institute, as well as Soros Fund Management LLC, in which his son, Jonathan Soros, plays a leading role.
The modus operandi is that Soros operatives either help establish “progressive” organizations or join them after they are established with a new infusion of a modest to substantial funding.
The agenda of the organization is then altered to make it look either like a far-out “conspiracy” association or the infiltrators of the organization create internecine battles between factions or tamp down its fervor. In some cases, the organizations ultimately cease to exist or are combined with other Soros-controlled or influenced organizations.
In the case of alternative journalism operations, Soros’ operatives launch attacks, some of them highly personal, against bona fide independent journalists and question their sources and investigations. WMR has been a primary target for such operations, according to sources familiar with Soros’ tactics.
Soros’ agents of disinformation and influence have moved in to “manage” the stories about jailed Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman,
the 2004 vote fraud in Ohio,
the Turkish and Israeli intelligence penetration of the highest echelons of the U.S. government, the presence of Israeli spies among the accused 9/11 hijackers in the months prior to the terrorist attacks in 2001, and Russian-Israeli “Kosher Nostra” criminal activity from London to Kyiv and New York to Moscow.
Overall, Soros’ operations are primarily focused on controlling the left through the use of censors
Soros has ingratiated himself to many on the Left but that was his goal. However, there are a number of progressives who are wise to Soros’ operations and will continue to expose them regardless of how many more billions he amasses from shorting stocks, speculating on national currencies, and destroying jobs."...
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2/24/09: "Until very recently, an oil-price windfall gave the Iranian state ample resources to pursue its agenda at home and abroad. How, then, should we explain an eruption of social pathologies in Iran such as drug addiction and prostitution, on a scale much worse than anything observed in the West? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it appears that Islamic theocracy promotes rather than represses social decay.
Iran is dying. The collapse of Iran's birth rate during the past 20 years is the fastest recorded in any country, ever. Demographers have sought in vain to explain Iran's population implosion through family planning policies, or through social factors such as the rise of female literacy.
But quantifiable factors do not explain the sudden collapse of fertility. It seems that a spiritual decay has overcome Iran, despite best efforts of a totalitarian theocracy. Popular morale has deteriorated much faster than in the "decadent" West against which the Khomeini revolution was directed. ...
Their efforts to isolate Iran from the cultural degradation of the American "great Satan" have produced social pathologies worse than those in any Western country. With oil at barely one-fifth of its 2008 peak price, they will run out of money some time in late 2009 or early 2010. Game theory would predict that Iran's leaders will gamble on a strategic long shot. That is not a comforting thought for Iran's neighbors.
Two indicators of Iranian morale are worth citing.
First, prostitution has become a career of choice among educated Iranian women. On February 3, the Austrian daily Der Standard published the results of two investigations conducted by the Tehran police, suppressed by the Iranian media. [1]
"More than 90% of Tehran's prostitutes have passed the university entrance exam, according to the results of one study, and more than 30% of them are registered at a university or studying," reports Der Standard. "The study was assigned to the Tehran Police Department and the Ministry of Health, and when the results were tabulated in early January no local newspaper dared to so much as mention them." ...
A country is beaten when it sells its women, but it is damned when its women sell themselves. The popular image of the Iranian sex trade portrays tearful teenagers abused and cast out by impoverished parents. Such victims doubtless abound, but the majority of Tehran's prostitutes are educated women seeking affluence. ...
According to a recent report from the US Council on Foreign Relations, "Iran serves as the major transport hub for opiates produced by [Afghanistan], and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime estimates that Iran has as many as 1.7 million opiate addicts." That is, 5% of Iran's adult, non-elderly population of 35 million is addicted to opiates. That is an astonishing number, unseen since the peak of Chinese addiction during the 19th century. The closest American equivalent (from the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health) found that 119,000 Americans reported using heroin within the prior month, or less than one-tenth of 1% of the non-elderly adult population. ...
For the majority of young Iranians, there is no way up, only a way out; 36% of Iran's youth aged 15 to 29 years want to emigrate, according to yet another unpublicized Iranian study, this time by the country's Education Ministry, Der Standard adds. Only 32% find the existing social norms acceptable, while 63% complain about unemployment, the social order or lack of money. ...
A better explanation of Iran's population implosion is that the country has undergone an existential crisis comparable to encounters of Amazon or Inuit tribes with modernity. Traditional society demands submission to the collective. Once the external constraints are removed, its members can shift from the most extreme forms of modesty to the other extreme of sexual license. Khomeini's revolution attempted to retard the disintegration of Persian society, but it appears to have accelerated the process.
Modernity implies choice, and the efforts of the Iranian mullahs to prolong the strictures of traditional society appear to have backfired. The cause of Iran's collapsing fertility is not literacy as such, but extreme pessimism about the future and an endemic materialism that leads educated Iranian women to turn their own sexuality into a salable commodity.
Theocracy subjects religion to a political test; it is hard for Iranians to repudiate the regime and remain pious, for religious piety and support for political Islam are inseparable, as a recent academic study documented from survey data [3].
As in the decline of communism, what follows on the breakdown of a state ideology is likely to be nihilism. Iran is a dying country, and it is very difficult to have a rational dialogue with a nation all of whose available choices terminate in oblivion. "
"One of them wanted to see Americans paying $8 a gallon for gasoline. Another tried to block access to domestic oil reserves that could one day exceed those in Saudi Arabia. Another thinks global warming is a dire crisis justifying a massive crackdown on energy -- decades after saying the same thing about global cooling. Yet another had a position in the one of the world’s top socialist organizations.
Meet the Obama administration’s energy team.
Forget everything you’ve heard about the president’s moderate picks on the economy, national security and other issues. When it comes to energy policy and related environmental concerns, this group is off-the-charts extreme. Too bad the issue will be a critical one over the next few years.
Consider Obama’s choice for energy secretary, Nobel prize-winning physicist Steven Chu. “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe(Eurabia),” The Wall Street Journal quoted him as saying last September. In most Western European nations, gas taxes alone come to around $4 a gallon and are designed to make the pump price so high that people are forced to drive a lot less. At the time of Chu’s comment, the “levels in Europe” were near $8 a gallon.
Chu has also said that electricity prices are “anomalously low,” though he neglected to indicate how much higher he wants them to go. Instead of a secretary of energy, it sounds like America is getting its first secretary against energy. Chu backed off such rhetoric after being nominated, but his true feelings seem obvious.
Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) is Obama’s choice to head the Department of the Interior, the agency that handles energy leasing on federal lands and most offshore areas. As a senator, Salazar has opposed much of this leasing, based on overblown environmental fears. It looks like “drill, baby, drill” isn’t going to survive to adulthood.
In addition to opposing domestic drilling for conventional oil, Salazar was also responsible for legislation blocking the development of oil shale. America has vast amounts of this oil-containing rock, mostly beneath federal lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The process of efficiently extracting this oil is still being improved; oil shale is a long-term project with uncertain prospects at this time. But if successful, it could provide literally hundreds of billions of barrels, exceeding the reserves in Saudi Arabia and providing enough oil to supply the United States for many decades.
As secretary of the interior, Salazar will have even more chances to stop cold any progress on oil shale, and with it our best hope for a dramatic increase in domestic oil production.
As with Chu, Obama’s choice for science adviser, John Holdren, has impressive academic credentials but some very strange energy and environmental policy views. Even Al Gore can’t match Holdren’s global warming gloom-and-doom rhetoric, including the claim that it could kill as many as 1 billion people by 2020. Holdren’s a veteran at making such alarming predictions, but back in the 1970s he worried more about whether man would survive the “threat of making the planet too cold.”
But whether it’s warming or cooling, Holdren has consistently advocated the same heavy-handed crackdowns on the economy and energy use, including the need for a “massive campaign ... to de-develop the United States.” Good thing he’s not in charge of the stimulus package.
Rob Bradley, chairman of the Institute for Energy Research, has compiled an amazing list of Holdren’s favorite policy prescriptions, including the “limitation of material consumption,” “redistribution of the wealth,” and even “movement toward some kind of world government.” Apparently, Holdren isn’t alone on the world government stuff.
In the position of the president’s top assistant on energy and climate policy is former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol Browner, whose picture and biography were, until quite recently, on the Web site of Socialist International. She was listed as a member of its Commission For a Sustainable World Society. The old joke that environmental activists are like watermelons -- green on the outside but red on the inside -- isn’t so funny anymore.
She’s not quite as opinionated as Holdren, but Browner does have a long record of placing environmental concerns, real or exaggerated, well above affordable energy and economic growth. Conspicuously absent from the incoming energy policy team is any real understanding that high energy prices are a bad thing that hurts the American people. Instead of a pro-energy team, Obama has assembled an extreme green team."
