Today’s Talk

The U.N. late last week released its report on climate change though the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  The panel included over 2500 scientific experts, 800 contributing authors, 450+ lead authors from 130 countries.  This is an impressive achievement in the area of climate change as the world’s leading experts give us the findings on how our actions are affecting the earth’s climate.  You may be interested in reading the summary of the report.  

On the opposite side of things, Exxon Mobile is at it again.  The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which is according to its website a private, nonpartisan, not for profit institution dedicated to research and education on issues of government, politics, economics and social welfare is collaborating with dishonest Exxon Mobile.  AIE as a nonpartisan institution is so much further from the truth.  For one, AEI is financed mostly by Exxon Mobile.  And for the last 10 years, Exxon Mobile along with the White House has been purposely misleading the public and falsifying scientific findings on climate change.  So it was not surprising when I found out AEI is offering $10,000 to scientist to challenge the U.N. report on climate change.  Surely Exxon’s record breaking profit of $39.5 Billion could be put to better use like repaying the damages caused in Alaska.  The connection between AEI, White House and Exxon Mobile is so clear anything coming out of their mouths with respect to climate change is rubbish.  

The media has been on Presidential hopefuls like ketchup on french fries! Some good and Some bad.  A bad example was on Obama going to Muslim school.  And who do you think did a horrible job?  Faux news aka Fox news.  If I didn’t say it enough times, Fox news is trash.  Thank God, CNN actually did some real reporting on this and got the facts instead of trying going down the road of basically saying “if your Muslim thats BAD…”  Well, Jon Stewart caught this and this clip was so funny I couldn’t stop laughing.  Sad to think in America that just because someone is Muslim means there must be something bad about them.  In any case, watch the clip for yourself!

Watch clip here

I have talked about how the large corporations like Exxon have been manipulating and outright lying to the American people about the effects of global warming.  Well, you can add the Bush administration to that list now.  Actually, our government has been misleading the public for years now mostly due to the ties that the government has with companies like Exxon. 

The President said in the State of the Disunion speech that “America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. And these technologies will help us be better stewards of the environment, and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change.”  Well, I believe he said the same thing about switch grass last year.  However, still today, scientist in that industry report (ABCNews, Jennifer Parker) that what is needed is government support in building research plants which has not happened.  

In any event, in a hearing held earlier this week with the Committee on House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, top NASA climatologist Dress Shindell testified that hundreds of government scientist said that “they have perceived or personally experienced pressure from the Bush administration to eliminate phrases which would indicate global warming is happening.”  Not only were they pressured but when the reports came to be published the reports were re-written by White House Staff if the scientist did not do it themselves.

Again, the creditability of this administration goes further into the ground.  If I did not say this enough, when reading government reports on issues always take it with a grain of salt.  It’s best to read “Peer Reviewed” literature on social issues like this. 

So, here is a clip of the testimony that NASA climatologist Dress Shindell had on Tuesday discussing how the Bush administration altered scientific reports to downplay the ramifications of global warming. 

Listen to testimony

I was a little surprise to see CNN report the story of Khaled El-Masri who is a German citizen that was abducted and tortured outside of Germany in Afghanistan.  Khaled El-Masri said to CNN that he was kidnapped in late 2003 while on holiday in Macedonia. In an interview with German weekly Die Zeit, he said after having been interrogated in Macedonia for several days, he was flown to Afghanistan where he was held in a secret prison for several months and severely beaten in interrogation sessions. After that he was flown to Albania where he was just dumped along the side of the road.

This is not the first case in which the U.S. has made a mistake in accusing, abducting and torturing citizens of other countries.  This is a routine policy enforced by President Bush.  International law is no longer followed and the U.S. has become the country of rogue cowboys (aka neo-cons).

Germany has issued an arrest warrant for the 13 CIA agents who were implicated in this.  The likelihood of E.U. authorities capturing those CIA agents are minuet.  It leaves me to wonder how many people are being held in CIA prisons around the world who have no connection to Al Qaeda.  We are a nation that has lost it values and beliefs in my opinion and time has long since past where a drastic change needs to happen.