McCain Blows Off Palin Hat Hype

Sen. John McCain brushed off the semi-controversy over his former running mate’s visor Sunday, attributing the blog and talk show chatter about Sarah Palin’s vacation attire to “hysterical attacks” from the left.

The former Alaska governor was photographed wearing a “McCain-Palin” visor with McCain’s name crossed out while she was on vacation in Hawaii. She claimed she was just trying to go “incognito,” but reportedly cut her vacation short.

McCain told “Fox News Sunday” he understands Palin’s explanation, and said he has a “wonderful relationship” with her family.

“Can’t you take her at her word?” he said. “She’s going to be a force in the Republican Party for a long time and the hysterical attacks on her from the left continue to validate that.”

FOX NEWS

Senators Lieberman and Palpatine: Side By Side

Someone beat me to this. When posting a previous article, I noticed there was a string similarity between the two.

Rod Blagojevich Trial to Start in 2010

If 2009 was a personal and legal roller coaster for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, next year doesn’t promise to be much smoother with his criminal trial looming in the summer.

Blagojevich’s legal team has turned on its head the usual defense strategy in big corruption cases to say or reveal little before trial, letting him embark on media blitzes in part to promote his book. There’s no reason to think that aggressive approach won’t be evident at a trial that could last months.

“The man has said it a thousand times, and that’s why he’s out there. If you’re not guilty, you don’t shy away,” said Sam Adam Jr., one of Blagojevich’s lawyers. “And he’s going to take the stand at his trial, and he’s going to answer his accusers.”

The strategy carries obvious risks: The former governor’s denials could be used against him at trial by prosecutors armed with extensive undercover recordings and the testimony of former Blagojevich insiders.

“That might hurt his ability to testify without being submitted” to an attack on his sincerity on cross-examination by the government, said Dean Polales, a former veteran federal prosecutor.

Blagojevich’s lawyers are likely to counter by trying to show that the former governor acted in good faith in the often rough-and-tumble world of politics and government and didn’t seek to enrich himself.

“I would say they probably would not say this is politics as usual in front of a Chicago jury,” said Polales, now in private practice. “But they will say he acted in good faith and that he was serving legitimate political interests.”

Read More at Chicago Tribune

Climategate, Leaked UK Emails

If temperatures were not already warm enough, the email leak from the University of East Anglia (UK) will make sure that the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen next week will be held in great weather.

In the unlikely event that you have not heard about “Climategate”, here is what happened. Hackers broke into servers at the University’s Climate Research Unit (CRU), a key centre for the study of climate change and downloaded 13 years of private emails and documents. They posted them online on a blog called The Air Vent. The hackers explained: “We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.”

Climate change supporters dismissed the revelations which emerged as bloggers trawled through 13 years of emails as a storm in a teacup. But sceptics regard them as a “smoking gun”, evidence that some climatologists colluded in manipulating data to support their hypothesis that climate change is real and is being largely caused by the actions of mankind.

Some of the emails are, at the very least, embarrassing. In one of them, from Professor Phil Jones, the director of the CRU, to an American colleague, the death of a sceptic is described as “cheering news”. In another he suggests that a “trick” was used to “hide the decline” in temperature. They even include fantasies of violence. An American wrote to Professor Jones: “Next time I see Pat Michaels [a climate sceptic] at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.”

The first point, on which everyone agrees, is that the action was illegal. Let the law take its course. However, this is irrelevant to the question debated. The debate is centred, or should be, on whether the science of Global Warming, alias Climate Change, has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that (1) there is a global warming of the planet and (2) it is caused by human activity.

My opinion is no, it hasn’t, as I have argued before in MercatorNet. It does not matter how many times the rhetoric about an overwhelming consensus is repeated. The consensus has been politically, not scientifically, generated. The statement of this consensus has the same value as, for example, that other famous statement that Iraq was piling up arms of mass destruction. It is part of a political campaign, not of an educational campaign.

The word campaign brings to mind the second point. The email hacking is obviously part of a campaign and the leak was timed to damage the meeting in Copenhagen. But again, the global warming case is also a campaign. The difference between the two is that one is sustained by the governments of some of the most powerful states in the world, the media and environmental groups, and has access to taxpayers’ money, while the other is sustained by a group of diehards using their own money.

The third and central point is that there is a hint of foul play that may have been exposed. The foul play, if it did happen, may have a tremendous effect in the lives of millions of peoples around the world and for generations to come. Isn’t it common sense to call for an investigation? Isn’t it even ethically demanded? The official reaction to such an enquiry is pitifully suspicious. It also lacks logic.

Somebody is accusing a group of people of tinkering with scientific data in order to produce a certain desired result, and of not wanting to make these data available because this could reveal the tinkering. In response, this group of people answers that there is nothing to discuss on the whole issue because their data have proven the truth of their results. This is basically the content of the official response to the alleged leak. Can the reader spot the gap in the logic?

Unwillingness to share data and methods of analysis by certain scientists supporting the man-made global warming interpretation has been mentioned before. Nigel Lawson provides examples with names, dates and the specific issues in his book An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming.

Finally, some of the official answers to the email leak argue that the implicated scientists have published their studies in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and this makes it virtually impossible to assert that they tinkered with their data.

I cannot help but smile at such an argument. Scientists, both authors and reviewers, as well as the editors of scientific journals, are human. They have their share in our common lot of error, taste for success, fear of peer pressure and interest in financial resources. A very recent case is an example of how scientific peer-review can be fooled. Jan Hendrik Schön, a physicist working at the Bell Labs in the USA, published a long string of articles during the 1990s and 2000s in Science (one of the two most prestigious scientific journals in the world) with results that he fabricated. He did it single-handed and it took years to expose him.

Science is difficult. It relies on a multitude of data, assumptions, simplifications and interpretations that try to make sense of the facts. Any cutting-edge science worthy of being considered for publication deals with opinion as much as with fact, precisely because it is trying to break new ground. Climate science is the epitome of this complexity, as it deals with the planet globally and the innumerable processes going on in the atmosphere, oceans and lithosphere in a mutual feed-back loop. Yes, there is a very substantial possibility that a great number of papers on the matter have substantial limitations that will be identified in the future. Some of them may even have intentional errors.

The genuineness of the leaked emails should be investigated. Let us see whether these angels of climate change are completely pure and whether some demons of denying have some goodness in them — as they may be actually interested in the truth of the case.

Javier Cuadros is a scientist and works in London, UK.

MERCATORNET

Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis Bashes Gays

VALLEJO, CA (KGO) — The city of Vallejo may be best known for declaring bankruptcy but now it is in the headlines for comments the mayor made about gays.

“I apologize if my words were offensive, they were not intended to be offensive,” Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis said.

Davis finds himself in the middle of a controversy after an interview published this weekend in the New York Times. The article, titled “Faith and Tolerance Collide in Vallejo,” quotes Davis talking about gay people, saying, “They’re committing sin and that sin will keep them out of heaven.” He also calls Vallejo “a city of God.”

“I’m not going to discuss my faith with anybody anymore,” Davis said Wednesday.

Davis does not deny making the comments, but says they were taken out of context.

Gay Vallejo resident Charles Legalos wants the City Council to censure the mayor and says his apology is an excuse.

“I would like to hear him explain in what context those comments would be appropriate coming from an elected public official,” Legalos said.

Two years ago, Davis won a bitter mayoral race by just two votes in a recount over an openly gay candidate. Members of the gay community say there has been tension since then, but Davis says he has been a consensus builder.

“There’s nothing people can point to in the past two years of my election or course of my campaign that would suggest that I’ve been anything but fair,” Davis said.

Davis feels the controversy is the last thing his city needs. Vallejo is dealing with bankruptcy and tough financial decisions. Father Lou Bordisso, who is openly gay, is organizing a protest against the mayor, saying Davis has violated the separation of church and state.

“I think anyone in political office does not have the right to try to impose their beliefs on the population,” Bordisso said.

The mayor has asked extended an olive branch, asking for a meeting with Bordisso, but that has not yet happened.

“We need to pull in a common direction for the benefit of the city,” Davis said.

ABC LOCAL

Uninvited Guests Make It Into State Dinner

This much is known: About 7:15 Tuesday night, a glittering blonde, decked out in a red and gold sari, holding the hand of her black-tuxedoed-escort, swept past the camera crews and reporters camped out to catch the red-carpet arrivals for the first state dinner given by President Obama.

“Hey, that’s a ‘Desperate Housewife’!” one reporter yelled out.

In fact, the couple — Michaele Salahi and her husband, Tarek — are Virginians who have been auditioning for a possible role in a different housewives franchise: the TV program “The Real Housewives of Washington.”

They swept past the camera crews and followed the trail of other bigwigs attending the dinner.

But neither Mr. or Mrs. Salahi, best known in the Washington area for promoting wine and polo in Virginia, was on the guest list for the event, a fact first reported Wednesday morning on the Washington Post Web site.

A White House official confirmed Wednesday that the Salahis were not invited nor were they seated for dinner in the tent erected for the evening. It was not clear Wednesday night how close the Salahis got to President Obama and his wife, Michelle, or to the guest of honor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, and his wife, Gursharan Kaur.

Edwin M. Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said Wednesday night that “initial findings identified a Secret Service checkpoint which did not follow proper procedures” allowing the couple to get access to the festivities, even though their names were not on the invitation list.

He declined to offer any more details, including what kind of procedures were not followed, why they were not followed and whether the couple has been interviewed. He said the investigation was ongoing.

“The bottom line is that they should not have gotten in,” Mr. Donovan said.

He also said that he was unaware of any other examples of this kind of party-crashing at the White House. “I’m not aware of any other incidents like this,” Mr. Donovan said.

The Salahis posted photographs of themselves at the dinner on their Facebook page: “Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady!”

NY Times

Senator John Kerry’s Daughter Charged with DUI

The daughter of Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts, was arrested in Hollywood on Thursday and charged with DUI.

Alexandra Kerry was allegedly stopped by Hollywood police officers at about 12:40 a.m. and brought to the police station for an investigation, the Huffington Post reports.

Officer April Harding told the new source the 36-year-old woman was held for about five hours and released at about 5:30 a.m. after posting $5,000 bail.

“Senator Kerry supports his daughter and will have no further comment on a private matter,” said John Kerry’s spokeswoman Jodi Seth.

Seth also claimed that the senator’s daughter was pulled over for an expired registration, but was released after a breathalyzer test confirmed her blood-alcohol content was under California’s legal limit for driving of 0.08 percent.

Harding stated that she had no knowledge of Alexandra Kerry’s breathalyzer test results, but indicated that drivers with blood-alcohol levels below the legal limit may still be arrested for DUI of officers determine that they were driving recklessly.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving estimates that one arrest for DUI is made for every 772 episodes of driving within two hours of drinking.

AVVO

GOP Senator’s Wife, Charlene Lugar, Arrested on DUI, Hit & Run

The wife of Indiana’s Republican Senator Richard Lugar, Charlene Lugar, was arrested and charged on an alleged drunken hit and run, and a car collision. The Associated Press reports that Charlene Lugar is accused by police of a DUI and “a hit-and-run after hitting a parked car in northern Virginia.”
The news station, CBS, reported the story with the following headline: “Loaded Lugar: Seantor’s Wife, Charlene Lugar, Charged for Drunken Hit-and-Run,” an example of the type of media coverage that has Senator’s Lugar’s office reeling; the repercussions of this type of story can be devastating to a political career.
The Fairfax County, Virginia County Police have Mrs. Lugar’s mug shot, and report that Senator Lugar’s office released the following public statement earlier this week: “At about 6:30 p.m. last evening, November 18th, Mrs. Lugar had a traffic accident in our McLean, Virginia neighborhood. A charge has been filed and a court appearance is scheduled for January. No other persons were in her car or the unattended car she hit. Thankfully, no one was injured. We are deeply sorry and embarrassed that this accident has occurred.” The Senator’s wife, Charlene Lugar is 72; her court appearance is scheduled for January 8, 2010 in Fairfax County General District Court.

CMR

Senator Daniel Inouye loves those Earmarks

Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Defense Subcommittee, teamed up with ranking Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and other lawmakers to cut more than $3 billion from the bill to make room for the earmarks.

‘Fed’ Scrawled on Census Worker, Found Hanged

A U.S. Census worker found hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery had the word “fed” scrawled on his chest. The FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment.

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