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"2009 ended with a flurry of important events on the climate-change front. In November, the Climategate scandal broke. An anonymous whistle-blower released over 1,000 e-mails from key scientists (both British and American) in the alarmist climate-change camp. The e-mails revealed a shocking pattern of the abuse of science by both American and British scientists collaborating at the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University the source of various global-warming studies that have formed the alleged scientific justification for capping human CO2 emissions. E. Calvin Beisner wrote that the e-mails showed: serious scientific malfeasance the fabrication, corruption, destruction, hiding, and cherry-picking of data as well as intimidation of dissenting scientists and journal editors and efforts to evade disclosure under Freedom of Information Laws in the United Kingdom and the United States. James Delingpoles blog found Conspiracy, collusion manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more. The incriminating e-mails were followed in December by charges from Russia's Institute of Economic Analysis that Britain's Meteorological Office deliberately skewed Russia's temperature data. With the underlying climate-change science so thoroughly compromised, did policymakers pause to reconsider the need for colossally expensive CO2-curbing policies? No. Instead they are locked into automatic-pilot mode. In the United States, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) dismissed Climategates revelations as irrelevant and continued to push her expensive cap-and-trade proposal (potential cost: trillions of dollars; potential climate impact according to its own proponents: a few hundredths of a degree). Internationally, last month's U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen ignored it. The delegates didn't skip a beat in pursuing a multi-trillion-dollar transfer of wealth from developed to undeveloped countries. Could it be that climate-change politics is more a

"Call it the mystery of the missing thermometers. Two months after "climategate" cast doubt on some of the science behind global warming, new questions are being raised about the reliability of a key temperature database, used by the United Nations and climate change scientists as proof of recent planetary warming. Two American researchers allege that U.S. government scientists have skewed global temperature trends by ignoring readings from thousands of local weather stations around the world, particularly those in colder altitudes and more northerly latitudes, such as Canada. In the 1970s, nearly 600 Canadian weather stations fed surface temperature readings into a global database assembled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, NOAA only collects data from 35 stations across Canada. Worse, only one station -- at Eureka on Ellesmere Island -- is now used by NOAA as a temperature gauge for all Canadian territory above the Arctic Circle. The Canadian government, meanwhile, operates 1,400 surface weather stations across the country, and more than 100 above the Arctic Circle, according to Environment Canada. Yet as American researchers Joseph D'Aleo, a meteorologist, and E. Michael Smith, a computer programmer, point out in a study published on the website of the Science and Public Policy Institute, NOAA uses "just one thermometer [for measuring] everything north of latitude 65 degrees." Both the authors, and the institute, are well-known in climate-change circles for their skepticism about the threat of global warming. Mr. D'Aleo and Mr. Smith say NOAA and another U.S. agency, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have not only reduced the total number of Canadian weather stations in the database, but have "cherry picked" the ones that remain by choosing sites in relatively warmer places, including more southerly locations, or sites closer to airports, cities or the sea -- which has a warming ef

"In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto's GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats. According to the study, which was summarized by Adam Shake at Twilight Earth, "Three varieties of Monsanto's GM corn - Mon 863, insecticide-producing Mon 810, and Roundup® herbicide-absorbing NK 603 - were approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety authorities." Monsanto gathered its own crude statistical data after conducting a 90-day study, even though chronic problems can rarely be found after 90 days, and concluded that the corn was safe for consumption. The stamp of approval may have been premature, however. In the conclusion of the IJBS study, researchers wrote: "Effects were mostly concentrated in kidney and liver function, the two major diet detoxification organs, but in detail differed with each GM type. In addition, some effects on heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted. As there normally exists sex differences in liver and kidney metabolism, the highly statistically significant disturbances in the function of these organs, seen between male and female rats, cannot be dismissed as biologically insignificant as has been proposed by others. We therefore conclude that our data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity....These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown.""

"Now that Copenhagen is past history, what is the next step in the man-made global warming controversy? Without question, there should be an immediate and thorough investigation of the scientific debauchery revealed by "Climategate." If you have not heard, hackers penetrated the computers of the Climate Research Unit, or CRU, of the United Kingdom's University of East Anglia, exposing thousands of e-mails and other documents. CRU is one of the top climate research centers in the world. Many of the exchanges were between top mainstream climate scientists in Britain and the U.S. who are closely associated with the authoritative (albeit controversial) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Among the more troubling revelations were data adjustments enhancing the perception that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other atmospheric greenhouse gases. Particularly disturbing was the way the core IPCC scientists (the believers) marginalized the skeptics of the theory that man-made global warming is large and potentially catastrophic. The e-mails document that the attack on the skeptics was twofold. First, the believers gained control of the main climate-profession journals. This allowed them to block publication of papers written by the skeptics and prohibit unfriendly peer review of their own papers. Second, the skeptics were demonized through false labeling and false accusations. Climate alarmists would like you to believe the science has been settled and all respectable atmospheric scientists support their position. The believers also would like you to believe the skeptics are involved only because of the support of Big Oil and that they are few in number with minimal qualifications."

"It has been a bleak winter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The credibility of the UN body came under attack days before the opening of the Copenhagen climate summit in December, when leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia appeared to show manipulation of temperature data used by the panel. Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, was forced to spend much of his time at the conference defending the integrity of the science contained in the panel's reports. Now it has been forced to apologise for including a highly alarmist claim in its most recent report that Himalayan glaciers were very likely to vanish by 2035. Most glaciologists believe the melting would take hundreds of years and some doubt that it will ever happen, pointing to evidence of glaciers advancing in the neighbouring Karakoram mountain range. The IPCC reports underpin every country's decisions about climate change. If the panel cannot be trusted, it becomes much more difficult to justify the global effort to cut greenhouse gases. That is why it is vital to place the allegations against the IPCC in context. While it is alarming that none of the 2,500 scientists who contributed to its 2007 report spotted the error, this is explained partly by it appearing in a single sentence on page 493. Climate sceptics around the world have spent two years scrutinising every claim made by the panel. So far they have identified one serious error; it seems unlikely that they will find many more. The IPCC should now re-check all the sources of statements in its report, but this process will not alter its conclusion that man-made emissions are very likely to be the main cause of global warming. "

"A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it. Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035. In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report. It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Related Internet Links * Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on Himalayan glaciers * How New Scientist reported the row Related Links * Global warming blamed for rise in malaria * Experts clash over sea-rise 'apocalypse' Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change. "

Last week's foiled airline bombing plot by a Nigerian man who hid explosives in his clothing has renewed debate in the United States as to how extensive and invasive passenger screening should be at U.S. airports. A few major airports already possess machines that can take detailed, full-body images, but Congress has not mandated widespread use of the technology. Air travelers worldwide are accustomed to passing through metal detectors. But in an era of plastic explosives and advanced chemical compounds, that system has proved lacking. Kip Hawley is a former head of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, which is charged with screening airline passengers and luggage. "The number one area we need to focus on, the biggest potential vulnerability, is a bomb on the body," said Hawley. Dutch officials have ordered detailed, full body scans of all U.S.-bound air travelers. Terrorism expert M.J. Gohel of the London-based Asia Pacific Foundation applauds the move. "These scanners are, in fact, very effective," he said. "They actually show a person's body - any foreign object attached anywhere in the body, even if it is internally. That kind of x-ray scanner would have located the package that this individual [Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] had on the flight to Detroit. They are on a trial basis at the moment."

"Samson Motorworks presents the SwitchBlade, which is anticipated to be made available in the third or fourth quarter of 2009. Ground versions would likely be available in early 2010. A three-wheeled multimode vehicle {MMV} with a scissors-like wing for flying and a torsion bar lean system for its role as a road rocket.Video courtesy, and copyright Samson Motorworks - More at AamarnA Lifestyle | www.AamarnA.com"

"Atlanta Almost 1-1/2 years since she shook up American politics with her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is set to headline another landmark political event: the first-ever Tea Party Convention next month in Nashville, Tenn. On its face, the gig would seem a step down for Ms. Palin, one of conservative America's most popular and polarizing figures (not to mention major thorn in the side of the Obama White House). But with an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll ranking a generic "Tea Party" as more popular than either Democrats or Republicans, and Palin herself rivaling the charming Mr. Obama in poll popularity, many experts see the Tea Party event as a potential milestone for a mounting, even transformational, force in US politics. "[W]ith two wars, a continuing terror threat, huge federal deficits, and a major healthcare overhaul in the works, there is no shortage of disaffection out there … and that could prove to be political dynamite," writes the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz. Against that backdrop, writes Mr. Kurtz, "The tea types can either blossom into a Perotista-style third-party movement or be subsumed to some degree by the GOP.""