Sunday, August 31, 2014

20 Jokes So Terrible They're Actually Funny. #14 Is Gold.

22nd August 2014

Stunning satellite images show summer ice cap is thicker and covers 1.7million square kilometres MORE than 2 years ago...despite Al Gore's prediction it would be ICE-FREE by now | Mail Online

Stunning satellite images show summer ice cap is thicker and covers 1.7million square kilometres MORE than 2 years ago...despite Al Gore's prediction it would be ICE-FREE by now

Myth of arctic meltdown: Stunning satellite images show summer ice cap is thicker and covers 1.7million square kilometres MORE than 2 years ago...despite Al Gore's prediction it would be ICE-FREE by now

Seven years after former US Vice-President Al Gore's warning, Arctic ice cap has expanded for second year in row
An area twice the size of Alaska - America's biggest state - was open water two years ago and is now covered in ice
These satellite images taken from University of Illinois's Cryosphere project show ice has become more concentrated

By David Rose for The Mail on Sunday

Published: 17:04 EST, 30 August 2014 | Updated: 03:56 EST, 31 August 2014

The speech by former US Vice-President Al Gore was apocalyptic. ‘The North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff,’ he said. ‘It could be completely gone in summer in as little as seven years. Seven years from now.’

Those comments came in 2007 as Mr Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaigning on climate change.

But seven years after his warning, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that, far from vanishing, the Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in succession – with a surge, depending on how you measure it, of between 43 and 63 per cent since 2012.

Scroll down for video

To put it another way, an area the size of Alaska, America’s biggest state, was open water two years ago, but is again now covered by ice.

The most widely used measurements of Arctic ice extent are the daily satellite readings issued by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, which is co-funded by Nasa. These reveal that – while the long-term trend still shows a decline – last Monday, August 25, the area of the Arctic Ocean with at least 15 per cent ice cover was 5.62 million square kilometres.

This was the highest level recorded on that date since 2006 (see graph, right), and represents an increase of 1.71 million square kilometres over the past two years – an impressive 43 per cent.

Other figures from the Danish Meteorological Institute suggest that the growth has been even more dramatic. Using a different measure, the area with at least 30 per cent ice cover, these reveal a 63 per cent rise – from 2.7 million to 4.4 million square kilometres.

The satellite images published here are taken from a further authoritative source, the University of Illinois’s Cryosphere project.

They show that as well as becoming more extensive, the ice has grown more concentrated, with the purple areas – denoting regions where the ice pack is most dense – increasing markedly.

Crucially, the ice is also thicker, and therefore more resilient to future melting. Professor Andrew Shepherd, of Leeds University, an expert in climate satellite monitoring, said yesterday: ‘It is clear from the measurements we have collected that the Arctic sea ice has experienced a significant recovery in thickness over the past year.

‘It seems that an unusually cool summer in 2013 allowed more ice to survive through to last winter. This means that the Arctic sea ice pack is thicker and stronger than usual, and this should be taken into account when making predictions of its future extent.’

The speech by former US Vice-President Al Gore (above) was apocalyptic. He said that the North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff and could be gone in seven years

Yet for years, many have been claiming that the Arctic is in an ‘irrevocable death spiral’, with imminent ice-free summers bound to trigger further disasters. These include gigantic releases of methane into the atmosphere from frozen Arctic deposits, and accelerated global warming caused by the fact that heat from the sun will no longer be reflected back by the ice into space.

Judith Curry, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, said last night: ‘The Arctic sea ice spiral of death seems to have reversed.’

Those who just a few years ago were warning of ice-free summers by 2014 included US Secretary of State John Kerry, who made the same bogus prediction in 2009, while Mr Gore has repeated it numerous times – notably in a speech to world leaders at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009, in an effort to persuade them to agree a new emissions treaty.

The ice cap is falling off a cliff. It could be completely gone in summer in as little as 7 years from now

Mr Gore – whose office yesterday failed to respond to a request for comment – insisted then: ‘There is a 75 per cent chance that the entire polar ice cap during some of the summer months could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.’

Misleading as such forecasts are, some people continue to make them. Only last month, while giving evidence to a House of Lords Select Committee inquiry on the Arctic, Cambridge University’s Professor Peter Wadhams claimed that although the Arctic is not ice-free this year, it will be by September 2015.

Asked about this yesterday, he said: ‘I still think that it is very likely that by mid-September 2015, the ice area will be less than one million square kilometres – the official designation of ice-free, implying only a fringe of floes around the coastlines. That is where the trend is taking us.’

For that prediction to come true it would require by far the fastest loss of ice in history. It would also fly in the face of a report last year by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which stated with ‘medium confidence’ that ice levels would ‘likely’ fall below one million square kilometres by 2050.

Politicians such as Al Gore have often insisted that climate science is ‘settled’ and have accused those who question their forecasts of being climate change ‘deniers’.

However, while few scientists doubt that carbon-dioxide emissions cause global warming, and that this has caused Arctic ice to decline, there remains much uncertainty about the speed of melting and how much of it is due to human activity. But outside the scientific community, the more pessimistic views have attracted most attention. For example, Prof Wadhams’s forecasts have been cited widely by newspapers and the BBC. But many reject them.

Polar Bear watch: Changes in Arctic sea ice from 1979 to 2012

An area twice the size of Alaska was open water two years ago and is now covered in ice after the arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in a row

Yesterday Dr Ed Hawkins, who leads an Arctic ice research team at Reading University, said: ‘Peter Wadhams’s views are quite extreme compared to the views of many other climate scientists, and also compared to what the IPCC report says.’

Dr Hawkins warned against reading too much into ice increase over the past two years on the grounds that 2012 was an ‘extreme low’, triggered by freak weather.

‘I’m uncomfortable with the idea of people saying the ice has bounced back,’ he said.

However, Dr Hawkins added that the decline seen in recent years was not caused only by global warming. It was, he said, intensified by ‘natural variability’ – shifts in factors such as the temperature of the oceans. This, he said, has happened before, such as in the 1920s and 1930s, when ‘there was likely some sea ice retreat’.

Dr Hawkins said: ‘There is undoubtedly some natural variability on top of the long-term downwards trend caused by the overall warming. This variability has probably contributed somewhat to the post-2000 steep declining trend, although the human-caused component still dominates.’

Like many scientists, Dr Hawkins said these natural processes may be cyclical. If and when they go into reverse, they will cool, not warm, the Arctic, in which case, he said, ‘a decade with no declining trend’ in ice cover would be ‘entirely plausible’.

Peer-reviewed research suggests that at least until 2005, natural variability was responsible for half the ice decline. But exactly how big its influence is remains an open question – and as both Dr Hawkins and Prof Curry agreed, establishing this is critical to making predictions about the Arctic’s future.

Prof Curry said: ‘I suspect that the portion of the decline in the sea ice attributable to natural variability could be even larger than half.

‘I think the natural variability component of Arctic sea ice extent is in the process of bottoming out, with a reversal to start within the next decade. And when it does, the reversal period could last for several decades.’

This led her to believe that the IPCC forecast, like Al Gore’s, was too pessimistic.

‘Ice-free in 2050 is a possible scenario, but I don’t think it is a likely scenario,’ she concluded.

GOOD NEWS FOR POLAR BEARS...

The apparent recovery in Arctic ice looks like good news for polar bears.

If there is more ice at the end of the summer, they can hunt seals more easily. Yet even when the ice reached a low point in 2012, there was no scientific evidence that bear numbers were declining, with their estimated total of 20,000 to 25,000 thought to be higher than in the 1970s, when hunting was first banned.

In many Arctic regions, say scientists, they are in robust health and breeding successfully.

Computer model predictions of decline caused by ice melt have also failed to come true. In 2004, researchers claimed Hudson Bay bear numbers would fall from 900 to fewer than 700 by 2011. In fact, they have risen to over 1,000.

However, the main international bear science body, the Polar Bear Specialist Group, admits it has no reliable data from almost half of the Arctic, so cannot say whether numbers are falling or rising.

EX-CIA employee admits President Obama is a radical Islamic enemy of America - Los Angeles Obama Administration | Examiner.com

EX-CIA employee admits President Obama is a radical Islamic enemy of America

August 28, 2014

It’s an explosive charge, one that practically accuses the president of treason.

Today, a former CIA agent bluntly told the newspaper, World Net Daily, that America has switched sides in the war on terror under President Obama. Clare Lopez was willing to say what a few members of Congress have said in private, but declined to say on-the-record.
Clare M. Lopez is the Vice President for Research and Analysis at the Center for Security Policy and a Senior Fellow at The Clarion Project, the London Center for Policy Research, and the Canadian Meighen Institute. Since 2013, she has served as a member of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi. Also Vice President of the Intelligence Summit, she formerly was a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005-2006, and has served as a consultant, intelligence analyst, and researcher for a variety of defense firms. She was named a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute in 2011.
Lopez said the global war on terror had been an effort to “stay free of Shariah,” or repressive Islamic law, until the Obama administration began siding with such jihadist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. Lopez believes that the Muslim Brotherhood has thoroughly infiltrated the Obama administration and other branches of the federal government. One of the most outrageous of those appointments is Mohamed Elibiary, a senior member of the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. According to a report by the Center for Security Policy, Elibiary supports brokering a U.S. partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group. Two months ago, a firestorm erupted online after Elibiary tweeted that a “Caliphate” is inevitable and compared it to the European Union.
Ms. Lopez also believes Obama had essentially the same goals in the Mideast as the late Osama bin Laden: “to remove American power and influence, including military forces, from Islamic lands.” The former CIA operative’s perspective affects her prescription for what the U.S. should do about the terror army ISIS, as she called for caution and restraint.
While there has been a sudden chorus of politicians and military experts calling for the immediate elimination of the terrorist army after it beheaded American journalist James Foley last week, Lopez believes the U.S. should have an overall strategy in place before fully re-engaging in the Mideast militarily.Any military action would be further complicated, she told WND, if it were not clear which side the U.S. is on, either in the short term or in the overall war on terror.
Lopez felt it was impossible to understand why the president and some of his top appointees, such as CIA Director John Brennan, who is believed to be a Muslim convert, “consistently seem to apologize for Islam, even in the face of such atrocities as the Foley beheading,” adding, they “take pains to assure the world they don’t think IS, (or the Islamic State, also called ISIS) or whichever perpetrator it was, has anything to do with Islam. How can they possibly believe that genuinely when everything these jihadis do tracks directly to the literal text of Quran, hadiths and Shariah?”
“In any case, and for whatever motivations, there is no doubt this administration switched sides in what used to be called the Global War on Terror,” she said.
I wonder if those who don't want to go 'on the record' will finally speak out.

Friday, August 29, 2014

OUTRAGEOUS: New Report Reveals Obama And Holder Are Abusing Power To Fund Radical Liberal Groups

"This is massive fraud and extortion..."

Norvell Rose — August 28, 2014

It’s the Chicago way. The scheme of a sophisticated criminal conspiracy. A devious, deceitful shakedown and money-laundering operation hidden beneath the guise of a legitimate business. Just the sort of corrupt enterprise you’d expect from a close-knit “family” that hails from Siciliy…or from the Southside.
A hard-hitting analysis from National Review Online shows that kind of description to be anything but hyperbole when considering how Barack Obama and his consigliere, Eric Holder, are seizing money from all sorts of businesses regulated under the crushing thumb of big government…then redistributing those funds to Leftist organizations working with the regime to “fundamentally transform” America.

It’s a shocking, sobering read that draws heavily on investigative reporting by Investors Business Daily. Among the compelling evidence offered for the charge of “fraud and extortion” is the intense pressure the DOJ and other federal regulators put on financial institutions…fines and settlements in the billions…with much of that money then funneled to hardcore progressives:

…Eric Holder, the Tom Hagen of this racketeering enterprise of an administration, is using the [money] that DOJ muscle is extorting from the banks to pour tens of millions of dollars into the coffers of the radical Left’s top rabble-rousers – in addition to diverting what should be public funds to pay off delinquent debts in cities that Democrats have destroyed.
This from Investors Business Daily:
Radical Democrat activist groups stand to collect millions from Attorney General Eric Holder’s record $17 billion deal to settle alleged mortgage abuse charges against Bank of America.
Buried in the fine print of the deal, which includes $7 billion in soft-dollar consumer relief, are a raft of political payoffs to Obama constituency groups. In effect, the government has ordered the nation’s largest bank to create a massive slush fund for Democrat special interests.
Besides requiring billions in debt forgiveness payments to delinquent borrowers in Cleveland, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago and other Democrat strongholds — and up to $500 million to cover personal taxes owed on those checks — the deal requires BofA to make billions in new loans, while also building affordable low-income rental housing in those areas.

The investigation goes on to reveal the patterns and pathways that the government-extracted riches follow to get to their ultimate Leftist beneficiaries, such as the now-infamous Obama-extension group ACORN. Included in the process chain of the “laundering” operation are progressive organizations with legitimate-sounding names like NeighborWorks:

The [Investors Business Daily] editorial goes on to explain that NeighborWorks, in fact, provided $25 million in 2008-09 to the housing division of the notorious, Obama-allied ACORN – the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, which ostensibly disbanded after a 2009 scandal dried up its government funding. In 2011, NeighborWorks doled out $35 million to similar groups, including the “Affordable Housing Alliance,” which pressures banks to make the kind of high-risk loans that caused the financial crisis and has ties to Obama officials.

And the recent multi-billion-dollar settlement with Bank of America that promises to fatten the Obama-Holder goodie jar is far from the only exampled of corrupt practices:

IBD [Investors Business Daily] reminds us that similar funding for Democrat activists has been written into the $20 billion in settlements for which JPMorgan Chase and Citibank were shaken down. This is massive fraud and extortion. The heavily regulated financial institutions are at the government’s mercy – that’s why they were making the bad loans in the first place, under pressure from politicians and the very organizations Holder is now inducing them to underwrite.

Critics of the Obama administration’s many-tentacled strategy for redistributing wealth have long argued that government systems and power have been, and will be, perverted and misused by the White House and its malicious minions. After all, this president and his party firmly believe that, “to the victor go the spoils.” Elections have consequence…they won…and now America is losing big.

Read more at http://www.westernjournalism.com/outrage-obama-holder-running-a-big-money-laundering-racket-to-fund-radical-left/#9owx2QWqUdzM7VxG.99

Obama named in RICO lawsuit

WND EXCLUSIVE

Obama named in RICO lawsuit

Accused of laundering funds to terrorist organization Hamas

Bob Unruh About | Email | Archive

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

Attorney Larry Klayman, fresh off a preliminary court ruling that the National Security Agency’s spying on Americans likely is unconstitutional, now has named President Obama and others in a racketeering complaint.

Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch and a columnist for WND, alleges the president and others laundered U.S. taxpayer money that was spent on Hamas rockets fired against Israel.
The civil lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington falls under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, alleges criminal acts by Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.
Seeking $1.5 billion in compensatory damages as well as punitive damages, it accuses the global figures of “laundering U.S. dollars” to Hamas, which is officially designated by the U.S. government as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
“This money has been foreseeably used to buy rockets and construct tunnels to attack Israel and terrorize and kill American and dual American-Israeli citizens who reside or are located in Israel,” Klayman said in a statement.
“The nation and the world have increasingly come to see that Obama views himself primarily as a Muslim and acts accordingly in favoring Islamic interests over Judeo-Christian ones, and the complaint lays out Obama’s history in documented detail,” he said.
Klayman said Obama’s actions “were calculated to harm the nation of Israel.”
“His facilitating and ordering financial and other material aid to Hamas, along with his equally anti-Israel Secretaries of State Kerry and Clinton, and the U.N. Secretary General, is just the latest deadly chapter in what amounts to criminal activity which has logically resulted in harm and death to Jews and Christians and threatens the continued existence of Israel,” he said.
“That is why he and the other defendants were sued under RICO and other relevant laws,” said Klayman.
The White House media office declined to respond by telephone to a request from WND for comment, instructing a reporter to send an email. There was no immediately response to the email inquiry.
The case, No. 14-1484, alleges the defendants conspired to send hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas “under the false pretext that this financial support will be used for humanitarian purposes.”
“However,” the complaint states, “as recently reported by Voice of America and the New York Times, the recent killing of the chief Hamas financial officer by the IDF confirmed that these U.S. dollars, only some of which [were] found in his bombed out car, [have] predictably fallen into the hands of Hamas’ terrorist wing, which controls and was elected by Gazans to govern over them.”
Klayman’s recent case against the NSA challenged its program of spying on Americans. Two privacy-rights heavyweights, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, recently filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of Klayman’s arguments.
The case has been advanced to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Klayman sued the NSA over the collection of telephone metadata from Verizon customers that was detailed in documents released by intelligence-document leaker Edward Snowden. In December 2013, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued a preliminary ruling that the program was likely unconstitutional, and the case is currently on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
His newest complaint, with himself and a number of John Does as plaintiffs, is a civil action and seeks damages from the defendants “for violating plaintiffs’ and decedents’ rights, for engaging in racketeering and other prohibited activities, for engaging in international terrorism, for harboring and concealing terrorists, for providing material support to terrorists and terrorist groups, for directly and proximately causing the deaths of plaintiffs’ decedents, and for directly and proximately causing mental anguish, severe emotional distress, emotional pain and suffering, and the loss of society, earnings, companionship, comfort, protection, care, attention, advice, counsel or guidance, plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and their sons, plaintiffs’ decedents, have experienced and will experience in the future.”
It alleges fraud, money-laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, conversion and corruption.
The complaint notes Klayman recently was in Israel when it was attacked by Hamas.
Klayman, it says, “was subject to terroristic threats, fear, intimidation and blackmail from Hamas, aimed at coercing him from the exercise of his legal rights in violation of the Hobbs Act by Hamas seeking to deny his freedom of travel and public advocacy and business activities in Israel and other activities in Israel by threats and intimidation aimed at coercing him as a person engaged in public advocacy and business activities in and with Israel to leave Israel and disengage with Israel.”
Other “John Doe” plaintiffs also were in Israel at the time of the attacks, the complaint states.
It explains that, according to the law, a person “knowingly finances terrorism when fully aware of facts that would inform an alert person of average intelligence that the probable results of their actions will be to provide funding to a terrorist organization.”
“One may not naively turn a blind eye, not even a president of the United States,” the complaint states.
It says considerable amounts of charity money, public assistance, international assistance and humanitarian aid is motivated toward ending the violence in the Holy Land, but it “gets diverted to the corrupt enterprise, and becomes money that – fell off a truck into the hands of the criminals actually causing the violence and their enablers.”
The complaint says all of the defendants know or have reason to know that “funds and material support provided to Gaza under Hamas’s rule are actually used entirely or in the most part to finance the acts of terrorism, violence, murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, assault, injury, physical attacks, and other criminal activity by Hamas.’
The complaint says the defendants known Hamas uses building materials for home-made rockets and underground bunkers.
The complaint also notes Obama knows Hamas is officially designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by State Department and uses resources it receives for terrorist attacks, including the $900 million the Obama administration sent to Gaza in 2009.
It even accuses Obama of “siding with” militants known as “ISIS or ISIL, signaling to the people of Israel and Jews and Christians that Hamas’ crimes against Israel and Jews and Christians are tacitly supported and approved of by the president of the United States.”
The case also names Malik Obama, a half-brother of the president who runs the Barack Obama Foundation. The case alleges the organization raises money for the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Two leaked classified documents show Egyptian security forces have been monitoring Malik Obama’s activities and they also implicate President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton in the aiding and abetting of terrorists.”
Klayman explained the documents were entered as evidence in the criminal trials of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and other top Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/obama-named-in-rico-lawsuit/#VkijTY7tBfptoRgb.99

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Parasitic power: Solar energy’s five fatal flaws

August 21, 2014 by Viv Forbes, 2 Comments

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Viv Forbes

But solar energy has five fatal flaws for supplying 24/7 grid power.
Firstly, sunshine at any spot is always intermittent and often unreliable. Solar panels can only deliver significant energy from 9am to 3pm – a maximum of 25% of each day. Solar can often help supply the hot afternoon demand for air conditioning, but demand for electricity generally peaks at about 6.30pm, when production from solar is usually zero.
Secondly, to be a stand-alone energy supplier, PV solar needs batteries to cover those times when solar is not producing – about 75% of the time under ideal cloudless skies. To charge the batteries for continuous power, while also supplying usable power, a solar plant can only deliver a theoretical maximum of 25% of its day-time capacity. Cloudy days greatly increase the battery storage needed, and the generating capacity absorbed in charging the batteries. Currently, only pumped hydro storage could possibly supply the storage capacity needed and then only at massive cost, and in a few suitable locations.
Thirdly, solar energy is very dilute, so huge areas of land are needed to collect industrial quantities of energy.
If it were possible to anchor a solar collector one meter square at the top of the atmosphere, aligned continuously to face the sun, and never shadowed by the earth or the moon, it would receive solar energy at the rate of 1,366 Watts per square metre (W/m2) – that would power 13 light bulbs each using 100 watts.
If that panel were located on the surface, at the equator, under clear skies, aligned continuously to face the sun, and never shaded by the earth or the moon, solar energy dissipated by the atmosphere would reduce energy received to 1,000 watts.
In the real rotating world, where sunshine only reaches usable intensity for about 25% of the time, the best located panel would have a capacity factor of about 17% – it would receive 170 watts of energy – not quite 2 X 100W light bulbs.
PV solar panels convert solar energy to electrical energy at an efficiency factor of about 15%. Thus our panel, at the equator,

year round, should deliver 25.5 watts of electrical energy – one very dim light bulb.
Away from the equator, solar energy hits the Earth’s surface at an angle, thus delivering less energy per panel. This useful site shows how solar intensity varies with latitude in Australia:
Shift that panel to Melbourne, add clouds, shading, urban air pollution and dirt on the panels, and fix it to a sloping roof often aligned poorly to collect sunshine, and it is time to start the diesel generator in the car port.
It is sensible to use unused space like roofs for solar collectors but such fragmented facilities will never match a compact well-designed solar plant in construction, maintenance and cleaning costs or go close to achieving the correct panel orientation.
Most people underestimate the land needed for significant solar collectors. In a learned paper published in 2013, Graham Palmer has produced a credible calculation that it would need a square with 31 km sides, completely filled with PV panels, to collect energy equivalent to Australia’s annual electricity requirements.
To also charge batteries to maintain steady supply from a stand-alone solar facility would require at least four times this area – imagine 3,844 square kilometres of collectors, even if suitable battery technology was available.
In addition, PV panels start to degrade in rain, hail and sunshine from the day they are installed, some panels losing significant capacity in as little as three years. And unless washed regularly, dust and bird poop degrades their performance even quicker. All those sparkies checking panel performance and all those cleaners with mops need access roads – this greatly increases the area needed for industrial solar installations.
The fourth fatal flaw of solar energy is the pernicious effect of the dramatic fluctuations in supply on the reliable and essential parts of the grid. When solar electricity floods the network around mid-day, the back-up stations have to throttle back, all the stations needed for stability and backup have their profits reduced, and some may be forced to close, making the network even more fragile and prone to blackouts. Then if a cloud floats across the sky, the backups have to re-start swiftly.
Fifthly, large-scale solar power will create environmental damage over large areas of land. Solar collectors may only manage to convert about 10% of the sun’s energy into electricity, the rest being reflected or converted into local heating. But the whole solar spectrum is blocked, thus robbing 100% of the life-giving sunshine from the ground underneath, creating a man-made solar desert. For solar-thermal, where mirrors focus intense solar heat to generate steam, birds that fly through the heat beams get fried. Why would true environmentalists support industrial-scale solar energy collection?
All consumers should be free to use solar energy in their own way at their own cost. But these five fatal flaws mean that

collecting solar energy should never play more than a minor and very expensive role in supplying grid power.
Desertec, the utopian US$560 billion project designed to cover 16,800 square km of the Sahara Desert with solar panels, and then export electricity 1,600 km to Europe, has collapsed.
A similar fate awaits other attempts to extract 24/7 grid power from intermittent, unpredictable and dilute solar power.
The latest “Desertec Idea” is “solar roads” where highways are paved with solar panels. Imagine the construction and maintenance costs, the length of transmission lines, and the problems of shading and abrasion by traffic, the hazards of cleaning and the random non-ideal orientation of the panels.
Not with my money thanks.
______________
Would you like to know more?
Solar Power Realities
Desertec Sahara Solar Project abandoned
Emerging solar plants scorch birds in mid-air
Household Solar Photovoltaics – supplier of marginal abatement or Primary Source of Low Emission Power?
The Solar Fraud – Why Solar Energy Won’t Run the World, Howard C. Hayden, Second Edition, 2004, Vales Lake Publishing

Solar Roads? Too good to be true
Australia’s Carbon Sense Coalition

- See more at: http://www.cfact.org/2014/08/21/parasitic-power-solar-energys-five-fatal-flaws/#sthash.QRfPUkmy.dpuf

Parasitic power: Solar energy’s five fatal flaws

August 21, 2014 by Viv Forbes, 2 Comments

The sun is the most important energy source on Earth. It provides our daily warmth and light and the rotation and orbit of the earth turn its steady output into fluctuating day and night, summer and winter. Solar energy powers the growth of all trees, grasses, herbs, crops and algae; it creates the clouds and powers the storms; it is the source of all hydro, photo-voltaic (PV), solar-thermal, bio-mass and wind energy; and, over geological time, it also creates coal.
PV solar panels can directly harvest solar energy. They are useful in remote locations, for some portable applications and, with enough panels and batteries, stand-alone solar can even power homes.
But solar energy has five fatal flaws for supplying 24/7 grid power.
Firstly, sunshine at any spot is always intermittent and often unreliable. Solar panels can only deliver significant energy from 9am to 3pm – a maximum of 25% of each day. Solar can often help supply the hot afternoon demand for air conditioning, but demand for electricity generally peaks at about 6.30pm, when production from solar is usually zero.
Secondly, to be a stand-alone energy supplier, PV solar needs batteries to cover those times when solar is not producing – about 75% of the time under ideal cloudless skies. To charge the batteries for continuous power, while also supplying usable power, a solar plant can only deliver a theoretical maximum of 25% of its day-time capacity. Cloudy days greatly increase the battery storage needed, and the generating capacity absorbed in charging the batteries. Currently, only pumped hydro storage could possibly supply the storage capacity needed and then only at massive cost, and in a few suitable locations.
Thirdly, solar energy is very dilute, so huge areas of land are needed to collect industrial quantities of energy.
If it were possible to anchor a solar collector one meter square at the top of the atmosphere, aligned continuously to face the sun, and never shadowed by the earth or the moon, it would receive solar energy at the rate of 1,366 Watts per square metre (W/m2) – that would power 13 light bulbs each using 100 watts.
If that panel were located on the surface, at the equator, under clear skies, aligned continuously to face the sun, and never shaded by the earth or the moon, solar energy dissipated by the atmosphere would reduce energy received to 1,000 watts.
In the real rotating world, where sunshine only reaches usable intensity for about 25% of the time, the best located panel would have a capacity factor of about 17% – it would receive 170 watts of energy – not quite 2 X 100W light bulbs.
PV solar panels convert solar energy to electrical energy at an efficiency factor of about 15%. Thus our panel, at the equator, year round, should deliver 25.5 watts of electrical energy – one very dim light bulb.

Away from the equator, solar energy hits the Earth’s surface at an angle, thus delivering less energy per panel. This useful site shows how solar intensity varies with latitude in Australia:
Shift that panel to Melbourne, add clouds, shading, urban air pollution and dirt on the panels, and fix it to a sloping roof often aligned poorly to collect sunshine, and it is time to start the diesel generator in the car port.
It is sensible to use unused space like roofs for solar collectors but such fragmented facilities will never match a compact well-designed solar plant in construction, maintenance and cleaning costs or go close to achieving the correct panel orientation.
Most people underestimate the land needed for significant solar collectors. In a learned paper published in 2013, Graham Palmer has produced a credible calculation that it would need a square with 31 km sides, completely filled with PV panels, to collect energy equivalent to Australia’s annual electricity requirements.
To also charge batteries to maintain steady supply from a stand-alone solar facility would require at least four times this area – imagine 3,844 square kilometres of collectors, even if suitable battery technology was available.
In addition, PV panels start to degrade in rain, hail and sunshine from the day they are installed, some panels losing significant capacity in as little as three years. And unless washed regularly, dust and bird poop degrades their performance even quicker. All those sparkies checking panel performance and all those cleaners with mops need access roads – this greatly increases the area needed for industrial solar installations.
The fourth fatal flaw of solar energy is the pernicious effect of the dramatic fluctuations in supply on the reliable and essential parts of the grid. When solar electricity floods the network around mid-day, the back-up stations have to throttle back, all the stations needed for stability and backup have their profits reduced, and some may be forced to close, making the network even more fragile and prone to blackouts. Then if a cloud floats across the sky, the backups have to re-start swiftly.
Fifthly, large-scale solar power will create environmental damage over large areas of land. Solar collectors may only manage to convert about 10% of the sun’s energy into electricity, the rest being reflected or converted into local heating. But the whole solar spectrum is blocked, thus robbing 100% of the life-giving sunshine from the ground underneath, creating a man-made solar desert. For solar-thermal, where mirrors focus intense solar heat to generate steam, birds that fly through the heat beams get fried. Why would true environmentalists support industrial-scale solar energy collection?
All consumers should be free to use solar energy in their own way at their own cost. But these five fatal flaws mean that collecting solar energy should never play more than a minor and very expensive role in supplying grid power.

Desertec, the utopian US$560 billion project designed to cover 16,800 square km of the Sahara Desert with solar panels, and then export electricity 1,600 km to Europe, has collapsed.
A similar fate awaits other attempts to extract 24/7 grid power from intermittent, unpredictable and dilute solar power.
The latest “Desertec Idea” is “solar roads” where highways are paved with solar panels. Imagine the construction and maintenance costs, the length of transmission lines, and the problems of shading and abrasion by traffic, the hazards of cleaning and the random non-ideal orientation of the panels.
Not with my money thanks.
______________
Would you like to know more?
Solar Power Realities
Desertec Sahara Solar Project abandoned
Emerging solar plants scorch birds in mid-air
Household Solar Photovoltaics – supplier of marginal abatement or Primary Source of Low Emission Power?
The Solar Fraud – Why Solar Energy Won’t Run the World, Howard C. Hayden, Second Edition, 2004, Vales Lake Publishing

Solar Roads? Too good to be true
Australia’s Carbon Sense Coalition

- See more at: http://www.cfact.org/2014/08/21/parasitic-power-solar-energys-five-fatal-flaws/#sthash.QRfPUkmy.dpuf

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Rescue Of James Foley Failed; Obama Kept "Dragging His Feet" | The Federalist Papers

Report: Rescue Attempt Of James Foley Failed Because Obama Kept “Dragging His Feet”

By Steve Straub On August 21, 2014 · 16 Comments · In US, Video

Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer (Ret.) is a former senior intelligence officer who wrote the book “Operation Dark Heart” about Special Operations successes during the early part of the war in Afghanistan. He also testified to Congress about the breakdown in communications between the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA prior to 9/11.

Via Washington Free Beacon:

Thursday morning, Shaffer appeared on WMAL radio in Washington, D.C., to discuss the ISIS execution of American journalist James Foley earlier this week.
He told me and co-host Brian Wilson that the recently revealed rescue attempt led by Special Forces earlier this summer failed because President Obama was slow to give the go-ahead:

I’m hearing from my friends in the Pentagon, they are giving him every single option way ahead of time. And let me give you a little secret here: The reason that raid into Syria failed to get Foley and those guys was because the president drug his feet. He waited too long, the intel got stale, and by the time we actually gave the “go” word it failed because we just didn’t react quick enough.

Listen to the full interview:
What do you think about the possibility that the rescue operation for James Foley and the other captives may have failed because President Obama dithered for too long? It sure sounds like what we’ve sadly come to expect from this President.

O'Reilly's Epic Race Rant Blasts Obama, Sharpton, Jackson, 'Weasels,' 'Scum' | CNS News

O'Reilly's Epic Race Rant Blasts Obama, Sharpton, Jackson, 'Weasels,' 'Scum'

August 20, 2014 - 4:26 PM

By Craig Bannister

Before racial tensions and riots erupted in Ferguson, MO after Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly delivered an impassioned, no-holds-barred commentary on America's race problems.
O'Reilly lays the blame squarely on the shoulders of "race hustlers," Hollywood "Greedheads," "derelict parents," "limousine liberals," and the "disintegration of the African-American family."
See the video and full transcript of O'Reilly's July 23, 2013 discourse below.

The culture that we have in this country does lead to criminal profiling, because young black American men are so often involved in crime. The statistic's overwhelming. But, here's the headline:
Young black men commit homicides at a rate ten times greater than whites and Hispanics combined. Presented with damning evidence like that, and like the many holocausts in Chicago where hundreds of American Americans are murdered each year, civil rights industry looks the other way or makes excuses. They blame guns, poor education, lack of jobs - rarely, do they define the problem accurately. So, here it is:
The reason there is so much violence and chaos in the black precincts is the disintegration of the African-American family.
Right now, about 73% of all black babies are born out of wedlock. That drives poverty. And, the lack of involved fathers leads to young boys growing up resentful and unsupervised.
When was the last time you saw a public service ad telling young black girls to avoid becoming pregnant? Has Pres. Obama done such an ad? How about Jackson or Sharpton? Has the Congressional Black Caucus demanded an ad like that? How about the PC pundits who work for NBC News?
White people don't force black people to have babies out of wedlock. That's a personal decision. A decision that has devastated millions of children and led to disaster, both socially and economically. So, raised without much structure, young black men often reject education, gravitate towards the street culture, drugs, hustling, gangs. Nobody forces them to do that. Again, it is a personal decision.
But, the entertainment industry encourages the irresponsibility by marketing a gangsta culture: hip-hop, movies, trashy TV shows, to impressionable children. In fact, Pres. Obama has welcomed some of the worst offenders in that cesspool to the White House, when he should be condemning what these weasels are doing. These so-called entertainers get rich, while the kids who emulate their lyrics and attitude destroy themselves.
And, then, there's the drug situation. Go to Detroit and ask anyone living on the south side of the Eight Mile Road what destroyed their city and they will tell you "narcotics." They know addiction leads to crime and debasement.
But, what do the race hustlers and limousine liberals yell about? The number of black men in prison for selling drugs: "Oh, it's so unfair! It's a non-violent crime, and blacks are targeted!"
That is one of the biggest lies in the history of this country. The thugs who sell hard drugs, no matter what color they are, deserve to be put away for long periods of time. They sell poison. They sell a product that enslaves and kills. They are scum.
When was the last time you heard the Congressional Black Caucus say that? How about Jackson and Sharpton? How about Pres. Obama?
The solution to the epidemic of violent crime in poor black neighborhoods is to actively discourage pregnancies out of marriage, to impose strict discipline in the public schools - including mandatory student uniforms - and to create a zero tolerance policy for gun and drug crimes, imposing harsh mandatory prison time on the offenders. And, finally, challenging the entertainment industry to stop peddling garbage.
Hey, listen up you Greedheads: if a kid can't speak proper English, uses the "F" word in every sentence, is disrespectful in his or her manner, that child will never be able to compete in the marketplace of America. Never. And, it has nothing to do with slavery. It has everything to do with you Hollywood people and you derelict parents. You're the ones hurting these vulnerable children.
You want a conversation? You got it.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Liberalism remains an ideology of genocidal hate and rage - Conservative Firing LineConservative Firing Line

Liberalism remains an ideology of genocidal hate and rage

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Joe Newby

In February 2011, I wrote that liberalism is an ideology of hate and rage.
At the time that article was written, unions, backed by Democrats and Obama’s own campaign arm, had sparked what I called the “Wisconsin Insurrection.”

Liberalism remains an ideology of hate and rage, but since early 2011, the left has become even more violent, to the point of being genocidal.
They don’t want to discuss public policy or debate issues. They demand blind obedience and if you don’t march in lock step with them, they want you dead.
Hyperbole? Hardly.
In July 2011, gay sex columnist and alleged “anti-bullying” activist Dan Savage told Bill Maher that he wished all Republicans were “f*****g dead.”
Don’t take my word for it — watch for yourself (the comment starts at about the :59 second mark)

“Is this really the kind of discussion HBO condones? A guest saying he wants about 40 percent of the nation dead?” Newsbusters’ Noel Sheppard asked at the time.
Savage isn’t the only liberal who has expressed a desire for genocide.
Recently, liberal hate talker Mike Malloy said he wished an “angel of the Lord” would decapitate everyone in the Tea Party.
Again, don’t just take my word for it — you can hear it for yourself:

During the 2012 campaign, liberals on Twitter and other social media sites engaged in a relentless campaign of hate, routinely calling for the death of Mitt Romney, his wife and his supporters.
We covered the threats extensively, but you can catch up here:

Then there was the Democratic delegate from New York who said she wanted to kill Mitt Romney.
Again, don’t just take my word for it — watch it for yourself:

In 2011, we said that it would only be “a matter of time before one of these unhinged lunatics pulls a gun and commits a crime similar to the Tucson massacre.”
Unfortunately, that happened last August when a deranged leftist walked into the Family Research Council’s offices and shot a guard.
In response, liberal hate talker Mike Malloy called the conservative FRC a group of Christian “corpse-eaters.”
Most recently, union thugs assaulted Fox News’ Steven Crowder for daring to speak, and one person is heard on video threatening to kill Crowder with a gun. So far, no one has been arrested in the assault.
Liberals on Twitter, naturally, began issuing death threats after Gov. Rick Snyder signed Michigan’s new right-to-work law and naturally, the propagandists in the Democrat-media complex refused to cover it just as they almost always do when conservatives are threatened.
To be certain, not everyone on the left is a bloodthirsty, genocidal maniac with Hitlerian fantasies of death and destruction. Some, like Kirsten Powers and Lanny Davis, have repudiated the violence and encouraged their fellow liberals to act like human beings. The calls for civility, however, have fallen on deaf ears.
Two years ago, we said that liberalism is an ideology of rage and hate. Things are much worse now, and unless freedom-loving people stand up and put an end to the hate, this will be in America’s future:

Decision to release details of failed raid to free James Foley backfires on White House « Hot Air

Decision to release details of failed raid to free James Foley backfires on White House

posted at 8:41 am on August 21, 2014 by Noah Rothman

Late Wednesday, just 24-hours after Islamic State militants released a video featuring the execution of American journalist James Foley, American officials revealed that they tried to rescue him and other American hostages in a “complicated operation.” Unfortunately, however, that operation failed.
The mission aimed at freeing Foley and others from ISIS captivity resembled in many ways the covert operation which resulted in the neutralization of Osama bin Laden.
“The airborne raid into Syria was launched using modified Black Hawk helicopters,” The Washington Post revealed. “They were with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, an elite group of aviators that frequently operates with the Army’s Delta Force, Navy SEALs and other U.S. commandos in hair-raising missions across the world.”
Yet when American commandos arrived at the area where they believed ISIS was holding American prisoners, Pentagon Spokesman Admiral John Kirby disclosed, “The hostages were not present at the targeted location.” Several ISIS fighters were killed in a firefight with American Special Forces before the raid ended unsuccessfully.
So, why release this information at all? Some suggest that President Barack Obama’s administration has a political incentive to publicize details of the failed raid in the wake of Foley’s death. Operationally, it makes little sense to reveal American Special Forces tactics, particularly in a case in which those tactics were foiled. Some unnamed Pentagon officials agree.
“Two Defense Department officials, who spoke separately on the condition of anonymity because of the operation’s delicate nature, expressed anger at the administration for revealing the mission,” The New York Times reported. “One of the officials said the aborted raid had alerted the militants to the Americans’ desire and willingness to try to rescue the hostages, and, in the aftermath, had probably forced the captors to tighten their security.”
According to a National Security Council statement, the administration was simply trying to get ahead of reporters who were going to reveal the details of the raid with or without government collaboration. The administration, the NSC claims, would have preferred to have been able to keep this failed mission a secret indefinitely.
“We never intended to disclose this operation,” said National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden. “An overriding concern for the safety of the hostages and for operational security made it imperative that we preserve as much secrecy as possible.”
“We only went public today when it was clear a number of media outlets were preparing to report on the operation and that we would have no choice but to acknowledge it,” she added.
Why, then, not simply confirm that the raid occurred to press outlets making that inquiry? Why release details of the forces and equipment used, the faction of ISIS responsible for the hostages, and the mission goals? In a conference call with reporters, officials said that the administration wanted to keep the failed raid a secret in order to “preserve future opportunities” to mount further rescue missions.
American reporter Steven Sotloff remains in ISIS captivity and the fundamentalist group has threatened to execute him next if American airstrikes in Iraq continue.

Sharyl Attkisson Uncovers Yet Another Obama Scandal – One the White House Has Been Denying All Along

20,615 Shares By Kevin Boyd 1 week ago

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Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, now writing for the Heritage Foundation’s The Daily Signal, has uncovered the newest scandal involving the Obama administration – and this one threatens the safety of every American.
Attkisson has revealed in her latest investigation that the Obama administration has released more than 600 illegal immigrants with criminal records in early 2013.
From The Daily Signal:

More than 600 convicted criminals, including felons, were among thousands of illegal immigrants freed under the Obama administration in advance of 2013 budget cuts mandated under sequestration.

[...]According to the IG’s [inspector general] report, at least two-dozen “aliens” were released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement even though they were in a “mandatory detention category.” (After an internal review, ICE later redetained them.)

[...]During the three weeks leading up to sequestration, from Feb. 9 to March 1, ICE released 2,226 immigrant detainees—617 of whom had criminal convictions. Approximately 1,450 were freed the last weekend before sequestration. The field offices that released the most criminal convicts include Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta and Chicago.

Below is a graphic from the Inspector General:

Not only did the Obama administration release criminal illegal aliens, they denied doing it, as well:

In March 2013, when the Associated Press reported the administration had released more than 2,000 immigrants over a three-week period, Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano stated the AP story was “not really accurate” and that it had developed “its own mythology.”

“Several hundred [releases] are related to sequester, but it wasn’t thousands,” Napolitano stated incorrectly on March 4, 2013.

The IG’s report found that the White House was not directly responsible for the illegal alien releases and laid the blame solely at the feet of ICE and found that they cannot manage their detention budget or account for expenditures. Seems like a likely story.
Do you agree with the IG’s report or do you think there’s more to the story behind the release of these illegal aliens than just incompetence?

‘A Subtle Message to ISIS’ From a Ticked Off Military Veteran Should Send a Chill Down the Spine of Every Terrorist | Video | TheBlaze.com

‘A Subtle Message to ISIS’ From a Ticked Off Military Veteran Should Send a Chill Down the Spine of Every Terrorist

Aug. 21, 2014 6:26pm Jason Howerton

A military veteran has penned a brutally scathing message to the Islamic State militants in the Middle East who are slaughtering innocent men, women, and children.
The powerful response from Nick Powers, identified as a Marine Corps veteran by one website, comes after terrorists beheaded American photojournalist James Foley and posted the propaganda video online for the world to see.
The main, undeniable point of his message to ISIS terrorists is this: You really don’t want to pick a fight with America’s veterans.
It’s best to read his message in its entirety (Paragraph breaks added):

“As I sit here constantly hearing and watching you execute innocent men, women and children in the Middle East I chuckle. Why do I chuckle you may ask? Well let me explain something to you cowardice fools who think you are so tough behind all your propaganda videos. You are scaring a population that doesn’t know how to fight, you’re bullying the weak.
You say Islam is the religion of peace, but since when does terrorizing the innocent and beheading men, women and children constitute peace? WTF? But keep in mind, what did Saddam’s troops do when we came rolling into town? They surrendered, twice… So all your empty threats of coming to America and raising your flag over the White House amuse me more than any of you sick, sadistic bastards could ever imagine or comprehend.
In 2012 there was about 21.2 million veterans in the United States. Do you understand what that means? Let me break it down for you. That means there are literally millions of disgruntled, dysfunctional, pissed off veterans who have been dealing with years of abuse from their government stabbing them in the backs and having to watch their friends die because you Islamic extremist idiots can’t seem to act like normal human beings and stop terrorism and the violence.
It’s one thing to take over an Islamic state, but if my memory serves me correctly, I’m pretty sure we plowed through Fallujah in 4 days. Better yet, it took us about month to control your entire country. At this point, with 13+ years of war under our belts, how long do you think it would take us to do it all over again? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on that one. Do you really think you stand a chance on US soil? Do you really think it would be smart to poke that bear? Remember, never bite the hand that feeds you.
Remember we are armed to the teeth in the US and I can promise you this… the Geneva Conventions will not apply to you. You attack us and there will be no mercy. We will bring the righteous hand of God down upon you and crush you. The ball is in your court now ISIS. We are more than ready to arrange your so called “meeting” with your 72 virgins and send you to your “prophet” Mohamed.”
– Nick Powers

The post originally appeared on the Warfighter Foundation’s website.
TheBlaze is attempting to contact Powers to get more details about his background.
UPDATE:
Powers joined “Fox & Friends” Friday morning to share more of his thoughts. He served in Iraq in 2006 and was in the Marines for four years:

Sunday, August 31, 2014

20 Jokes So Terrible They're Actually Funny. #14 Is Gold.

22nd August 2014

Myth of arctic meltdown: Stunning satellite images show summer ice cap is thicker and covers 1.7million square kilometres MORE than 2 years ago...despite Al Gore's prediction it would be ICE-FREE by now

GOOD NEWS FOR POLAR BEARS...

Friday, August 29, 2014

OUTRAGEOUS: New Report Reveals Obama And Holder Are Abusing Power To Fund Radical Liberal Groups

"This is massive fraud and extortion..."

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Parasitic power: Solar energy’s five fatal flaws

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Report: Rescue Attempt Of James Foley Failed Because Obama Kept “Dragging His Feet”

O'Reilly's Epic Race Rant Blasts Obama, Sharpton, Jackson, 'Weasels,' 'Scum'

Friday, August 22, 2014

Decision to release details of failed raid to free James Foley backfires on White House

posted at 8:41 am on August 21, 2014 by Noah Rothman

Sharyl Attkisson Uncovers Yet Another Obama Scandal – One the White House Has Been Denying All Along

‘A Subtle Message to ISIS’ From a Ticked Off Military Veteran Should Send a Chill Down the Spine of Every Terrorist

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