Magnesium: Putting Some Spark In Your Heart !

Magnesium is essential to human nutrition. It is required for a wide range of biological functions, such as muscle contraction and relaxation, immune function, DNA, RNA and protein synthesis, regulation of vascular tone, insulin signalling and energy production. Unfortunately it has been found that most people have magnesium deficiency. In my practice, supplemental magnesium is central to many of my treatment protocols. As a natural healing spinal specialist, I see the benefits magnesium offers in the treatment of conditions that involve the nervous system or are driven by stress, fatigue, blood sugar irregularities and muscular spasm or tension.

The role of magnesium in regulating muscular activity is one means by which magnesium can influence the cardiovascular system. Another is that, as an activator of the sodium/potassium ATPase, magnesium plays an important role in the cardiac electrophysiology. This aspect of magnesium physiology has been the subject of a recently published study examining the relationship between magnesium and Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD). In one of the largest studies of its kind the research was conducted with 121,700 female nurses aged 30 to 55 years at a baseline in 1976 and followed through to 2005. Detailed information on lifestyle habits, medical history and dietary information (with magnesium intake calculated by each food consumed including any supplements taken) and blood tests.

The researchers found that both higher intakes and higher plasma levels of magnesium are significantly related to a lower risk of SCD. Plasma concentrations were significantly lower in those who suffered SCD than those who did not. The results showed a 66% reduction in the risk in those with the highest serum levels of magnesium relative to the lowest. Strangely, most people who die of SCD are not recognized as being at high risk. It's reported that 55% of men and 68% of women have no clinically recognized heart disease before sudden death hits them. This lack of overt warning signs can create difficulty in taking preventative action in such patients. That is why more needs to be done to highlight the prevalence of magnesium deficiency in the general population.

The Way I See It....guarding against magnesium insufficiency is essential for healthy physiology. As Practitioners we see the benefits of prescribing magnesium for patients with overt signs. Those who show no such signs get evaluated through a dietary consultation that usually exposes some malnutrition in the magnesium laden foods. The statistics tell the story; many people do not achieve the recommended daily magnesium intake and put themselves at higher risk for SCD. So, either way, we follow the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council's recommended dietary intake for magnesium for adults, which is 310 to 420 mg/day, depending on age and sex. Supplementation will add a broad range benefit for so many physiological functions the body needs for its health and your wellbeing.

Obama's Declaration of Collectivism !

Over the weekend I got to fully read President Barack Obama's inaugural speech.  It was not only troubling for what he did say but what he didn't say. In a recent posting I mentioned that he didn't say anything about working together with the other Partys and the need for cooperation and compromise on some of the big issues facing the government and American people in the months ahead. One of the least remarked upon aspects of his speech was his attempt to co-opt the Founding Father's Declaration of Independence to bolster his far-left agenda.

Sure, the president quoted one of the most important sentences in world history: ''We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.''  So far so good. But he later connected the Declaration with his own leftist/liberal agenda: ''...that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedom ultimately requires collective action.'' 

He fleshed this out with his trademark class-warfare, income-leveling rationalizations. Such as: The shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.'' He also talked about ''Our wives, mothers and daughters that earn a living equal to their effort.''  He followed that up with, ''The wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship,''  Here's what I take away from all this rhetoric: Mr Obama is arguing counter to the Founding Fathers that the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of equality of results, not the equality of opportunity, and that he will do what he can to use government to make everybody more equal in terms of their income and life work. THAT IS WRONG! He should be rewarding success. He should be promoting entrepreneurship and encouraging individual effort and opportunity. But his Marxist DNA won't allow these things.

This was no opportunity speech. This was a redistributionist, income-leveling speech. And it completely missed the point of the Founding Fathers some 237 years ago. They were talking about the equality of opportunity, not results. Theirs was a declaration of freedom, not government power or authority. They had a gutful of government authority with taxes, regulations and oppression without any representation of their rights of liberty. So while Obama was on the one hand preaching ''fidelity to our founding principles,'' on the other he was saying that preserving our individual freedom ultimately requires collective action.

Collective Action? The Founders were talking about individual liberty and rights. Not the power of a collectivist government. (Note: you ignorant people who voted for Obama, look in your dictionary [if you actually own one] what collective means)  The ''collective'' is a socialist idea, not a free-market capitalist thought. And the story of the last quarter of the 20th Century was of the absolute breakdown and end of the collectivist model. Collectivism was thrown into the dustbin of history by the weight of its own failure. Now this deadshit president wants to revive this concept again! You have to wonder if he really understands the America ''idea'' and the American historical experience.

During this second-term inaugural speech, Obama amazingly said, ''We do not believe in this country that freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.''  Were Steve Jobs and Bill Gates lucky? Was Henry Ford or Thomas Edison just lucky? How about they used their God-given talents of creativity, imagination and ingenuity, coupled with hard work, to create commercial ventures that financially empowered millions upon millions of people who then able to live better and more comfortable lives. It was the freedom to chose your path without government meddling that made great things happen.

The Way I See It....there was something crucial missing from the speech. The President's highest moments of passion were reserved for the struggle for civil rights, through Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall,'' a phrase that resonated with minorities. Yet...he had nothing to say about civic responsibilities. There was not even the vaguest approximation of Kennedy's clarion call, ''Ask not what you can do for your country....ask what you can do for your country.'' There was no acknowledgement that rights come with responsibilities in a democracy, especially for those -- rich and poor -- who are getting special benefits from the government. There was no call to a greater sense of community at a time when Americans have lost the habits of citizenship,

It was bad enough that the President had nothing to say about economic growth or excess federal spending, deficits and debt. Nor did he show any interest in reforming the huge entitlement programs that may bankrupt America. He did discuss the energy market. But rather than let market forces determine the most efficient and clean energy sources to power the economy, he insisted on more doomed green-energy projects subsidized by the taxpayer (like Solyndra debacle). In conclusion, I must say it's Obama's misunderstanding of the Founders' intent that is the most troubling. Equality of opportunity is the American ideal. Equality of results and income-leveling is foreign to the American ideal. The era of small government is over and socialism is back....beware America!

More Than Just Red Hair....!

I should really get this posted before Julia Gillard, Australia's Prime Minister, unleashes the Dogs-of-Discrimination against me. Ms Gillard, now that she has eliminated the moderate Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, plans laws against Free Speech so absurd and draconian that she has united the Left and Right of politics to take a stand. Nicola Roxon, Attorney-General and partner in crime, looks like taking the Finklestein Report to try and legislate morality into it's citizens. It could go as far as if you were giving a political or personal opinion around the office watercooler and someone took offense or felt it was being insulting, they could make a complaint and land you in court for discrimination. Of course the media would be prime targets from the present paranoid government we have for their reporting on Gillard and Party's misdeeds. So here goes.

What you were matters less than what you are, so it can't hurt Julia Gillard to admit her past -- and reject it. Then why won't she?  Fact: for at least eight years this redheaded Labor leader was an official of the Hard-Left Socialist Forum. No wonder she got along with another Hard-Left government leader, Barack Hussein Obama. Like two peas in a Commie Pod!  Here's how Melbourne's University's archives describe her group: The Social Forum (SF) was established in 1984, initially by disaffected members of the Communist party of Australia (CPA). Its membership included Australian Labor Party (ALP) members and political activists. Its stated aim was to contribute to the development of democratic socialism in Australia."

And one of its unstated aims was to help former Communists join the Labor Party. Back then, Julia had no trouble admitting to that communist influence, writing in a Socialist Forum pamphlet: ''Around 45 of the Forum's members left the Communist Party of Australia in the division of a year ago...'' She'd know of course. She not only wrote such pamphlets for the SF's 200 or more members, but worked until 1993 -- when she'd already become a lawyer -- as its organiser and then on its management committee. The policies she pushed were the usual sandwich-board stuff: scrapping our U.S. alliance, super-taxing the rich, introducing death duties, blah blah. But here's a novel one: twinning Melbourne with Leningrad -- renamed now, post-communism, St. Petersburg.

Of course, most of us grow wiser with experience and -- not well, young radicals -- leave such heady but ruinous Leftism behind. But has Gillard?  It's a fair question to ask someone, especially when she's part of a Labor team of which some 70% are Marxist leaning and ex-union officials. And far from repudiating her past radicalism, she refuses to even admit to it. Here, for instance, is part of her interview on ABC's Lateline program:
          Gillard:  I was a full-time university student and had a part-time job for an organization called Socialist Forum, which was a sort of debating society.
          Interviewer:  It wasn't a front organization for communists?
          Gillard:  Certainly not! It was an organization where people who identified themselves as progressives, some in the Labor party, some outside the Labor Party, would come together and talk about ideas. I did clerical and administrative work.

The Way I See It....Julia has good skills with the political airbrush. Gillard -- a long-time official and a leader of a group created by communists -- is transformed. In her new version, she becomes just a part-time typist in her ''student days'' for ''progressives'', who merely debated stuff. Her communists become simply people ''outside the Labor party.'' That's neither frank nor, I suggest quite honest. And when asked a direct question:
          Interviewer:  Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist party?

          Gillard:  Tony, I think that question shows how silly all of this is getting, though I suspect in this interview people could think you're the dangerous radical. After all, I'm only from the Labor party, you're from the ABC (chuckle).

A ''no'' would have been shorter. But more importantly, can Gillard ever own up to her past radicalism, and explain how and if she came to reject it?  After all, shes still of the Socialist Left and with another election due in the latter part of the year, will the Australian people stand for a leader that fostered anti-democratic feelings in her past. Maybe that's why she's against Free Speech. She certainly has some reassuring to do.

Australia Day: Black Thoughts & Imagined White Crimes !

It's never Australia Day without someone bitching about our shameful past or complaints about why we are not yet a republic. Though not actually an Independence Day like those celebrated in many countries, Australia Day commemorates the Arrival Day of the English First Fleet with boat loads of settlers, ''transported'' criminals and Marines to guard them. To the natives of ''terra nullius'' it's marked as ''Invasion Day'' with a flag burning but this year they refrained from that act thankfully and hopefully will let bygones be bygones. Especially now, since our past Prime minister, Kevin Rudd, officially apologized for past transgressions in Parliament in 2007.

Unfortunately, some people can't leave well enough alone and The Age newspaper, to celebrate in it's usual negative way, published this years' dirge by a white former judge, Peter Gebhardt:  '' What might an Aboriginal person say of Australia Day? It was the day that marked the theft of a land, the day that marked the abduction of a people, of a culture, the day that initiated the pathways to the Stolen Children and, to our ultimate shame, the deaths in custody. It is a day that stands as a reminder of massacres. The wind-stench of bodies burned in bonfires hangs upon the nation's conscience and in the clouds.''

Aborigines might well be grateful to The Age for getting a white writer to sum up what they are all collectively thinking - everyone of them (sic!). After all, much better for The Age to have a white ''fella'' describe their thoughts than to let some Aboriginal writer speak for themselves and risk him or her straying off the ideological reservation. But let's address the extraordinary Gebhardt hyperbole. In fact, ''Stolen Generation'' activists to this very day still cannot name even 10 children stolen just for being Aboriginal.  Alas, a royal commission found Aborigines are no more likely than whites to die in custody, and black prisoners are more likely to die outside of jail than in it. And which bodies were burned in bonfires exactly...you idiot??  Me thinks this judge should be more careful with evidence.

On Friday, Deputy prime Minister Wayne Swan called for a renewed ''national conversation'' about Australia becoming a republic, though Labor has no immediate plans to hold a referendum. Mr Swan laments that the republican movement has ''fallen from the national agenda over the past decade. I think our national conversation is sold short when it doesn't include a debate about our relationship with the Crown.''  What Swan fails to understand is not that people have stopped talking about the republic, but that the rest of us barely bother any more to listen.  But it would entitle us to a real Independence Day after all.

I feel a more appropriate debate for Australia Day was brought up by opposition Immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison. He reignited a much needed debate over multiculturalism, declaring a shift away from diversity to a more inclusive national identity being more appropriate. He outlined the Coalition's plan to reframe the debate around multiculturalism and ''restore some balance by emphasising what Australians have in common rather than social, ethnic or cultural differences. We Australians have our own culture to be proud of, and those coming to live in this country should accept it, get use to it and leave their old country's baggage behind or go home!''  Outlining his vision for a post-multicultural approach, Mr Morrison said Labor had spent too much time promoting the virtues of diversity and it's succeeded in dividing our citizens; causing friction.

The Way I See It....while there is broad acceptance of the benefits of cultural diversity, there is also growing frustration and disaffection among Australians living in areas of high ethnic concentration (we should call them ghettos), caused by perceived social and economic failure in these communities (who bleed our welfare system), and an increasing level of what I would term self-imposed cultural withdrawal (''non-assimilation disease'').

This ''condition'' has led many European countries to ''wise-up'' and discard the multicultural approach and reeducate and, if need be, even deport those ethnic groups that don't or won't assimilate into their country's cultural heritage. Bravo I say, especially when you see the Muslim community in their insular neighbourhoods with their second generation turning to criminal activities. Or the welfare-fueled Sudanese youth gangs playing havoc with a growing percentage of crimes committed. It surely cannot be the purpose of muticultural policy that Australians elect to disengage from their society for anybody else's religious, cultural or ethnic reasons. This sounds a WARNING about the need to provide a greater focus on selecting immigrants and promoting to those we accept what we have in common, rather than highlighting how different we are.

NOTE:  This Australia Day we had a record number of immigrants (17,000+), from over a 100 countries, elect to become citizens of Australia and enjoy its benefits for themselves and their families. Welcome!

Ending Gun Violence Requires Commitment; Commit the Fruitcakes !

The good news is: Obama and the Senate Democrats have no intention of passing more idiotic gun legislation in response to the Newtown massacre. The bad news is that they also have no intention of passing any legislation about the mentally ill, which would actually do something to reduce these mass shootings. Instead, the Democrats will ''jawbone'' about ''assault weapons'' and other meaningless gun laws for the sole purpose of scaring soccer moms into hating the National Rifle Association. Expect to hear a lot about Republicans preferring ''the gun lobby'' to children.

Ann Coulter, journalist and author explains; ''The reality is that the Democrats are hoping to pick up another dozen congressional seats in 2014, so they need terrified ignorant women. Senate Majority Leader (& old fart) Harry Reid cannot afford a vote on any of these nonsense gun laws because he needs to protect the seats of Democrats who have to get re-elected in districts where voters know something about guns.'' Even the stupidest politician has to know how utterly meaningless ''assault weapon'' bans are. But Democrats need to ''gin-up'' the most easily fooled voters. Coulter adds; Assault weapons are defined as whatever politicians say they are. The guns that are banned and the ones that aren't are functionally identical.  They are all semi-automatics.''

Semi-automatics shoot one bullet per trigger pull -- that's the definition. Any handgun manufactured since the Civil War is a semi-automatic. The most basic self-defence revolver for women is a semi-automatic. An automatic firearm -- what militaries and drug cartels have -- continuously fires when the trigger is pulled.  They have been subject to a near-total federal ban in America since the 1930's, so they are irrelevant to the discussion. The only differences in semi-automatics the Democrats want to ban and the ones they don't are purely cosmetic details, such as those with bayonet mounts or pistol grips. When is the last time anyone was killed with a bayonet....idiots!

It boils down to the fact that congressional Democrats can't risk making votes on such silly laws. Your guns will be safe, but your children won't, because we'll still have the mentally ill showing up at movie theaters, subway stations, shopping malls and schools. If soccer moms want to worry about something, they should worry more about schizophrenics than guns. (Read my posting on Mental Health laws on December 20th, 2012)  It's criminal that the American Civil Liberties Union is notorious for undermining the efforts of doctors, parents and whole neighbourhoods from institutionalizing many mentally unstable people.  Their ratbag lawyers frequently interfere with verifiable reports and  recommendations by psychiatrists with court injunctions to stop any commitment of the person.

The Way I See It....schizophrenics are generally incapable of knowing they need help. Without involuntary commitment, they are abandoned to the streets, getting beaten up, sexually abused, stolen from and even set of fire. They also, as happened recently, will push people onto subway tracks, murder grandmothers, slaughter firemen and enter ''gun-free zones'' to commit mass murder. But the President and his band of cynical Democrats won't do anything about it. It's up to you concerned citizens to tell this pack of leftist mealymouths to stop mouthing off about banning guns with bayonets and commit to getting these sick people committed.

The Gloat of the Week: I Mean Quote of the Week !

Those, like me, who dare assert the Earth's temperature isn't on a perilous rise are derided as ''deniers''.  For the cultural elitists that make up the majority of the delusional and anti-human environmentalist organizations, the climate debate has ended, and it is an unquestionable article of faith that mankind's carbon-dioxide emissions have set the stage for rising oceans, devastating hurricanes and disasters on a scale never before seen.

Now....last week a paper published by no less an authority than NASA scientist James E. Hansen (see photo) with a remarkable admission in it. It is titled Global Temperature Update Through 2012.  Here is the money quote, which pretty much ends the caterwauling from naysayers about global temperature being stalled for the last decade and a half. ''The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slow down in the growth rate of net climate forcing.''  Gosh, I thought Hansen had claimed that ''climate forcings'' had overwhelmed natural variability?

Mr Hansen is the intellectual Godfather of the global-warming movement, who advised Al Gore on his climate-scare flick, ''An Inconvenient Truth'',  on which he won his ill-gotten Oscar. Mr Hansen has just acknowledged more than a lack of warming. His words confirm nature, not mankind, played the decisive role in directing global temperatures over the past 16 years. In his 2003 paper called Can We Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb? in which he stressed that human-caused forcings on the climate are now greater than natural ones, and that this can cause large climate changes. Well....according to Hansen's latest essay, apparently not. So much for ''da bomb''.

The anecdotal evidence has certainly not been friendly to climate hysteria. Southern England is covered in heavy snow. Los Angeles has been shivering under a real ''cold snap. Frigid temperatures in January aren't unusual, but the global warming fanatics have been trying to pass off today's climate as worse than the droughts and heat waves seen in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s when even the Arctic Ocean melted as it has now. There's another interesting excerpt where Hansen's essay states: The approximate stand-still of global temperatures during 1935-1975 is generally attributed to an approximate balance of aerosol cooling and greenhouse gas warming during a period of rapid growth of fossil fuel use with little control on particulate air pollution, but quantitative interpretation has been impossible because of the absence of adequate aerosol measurements.''

That paragraph about 1935-1975 is telling, given that we now have a cleaner atmosphere, and less aerosols to reflect sunlight, it goes without saying that more sunlight now reaches the surface. Since GISS (satellite) is all about reading the surface temperature, that suggests (to rational thinkers) that some portion of the surface temperature rise post 1975 is due to pollution controls being enacted.  He and his ilk still can't accept the non-linkage of CO2 and the Earth warming up  But, of course....he's still arguing for an imbalance, even though flatness abounds. Seems like equilibrium to me.

The Way I See It....the leftists and eco-facists aren't about to give-up on global warming even with the writing (in Bold Letters) on the wall. Politicians need the scare to have leverage to raise taxes through ''cap and trade'' schemes and to regulate what types of light bulbs the public will be allowed to buy. It would be economic suicide for climate soothsayers to entirely drop their frightening prognostications because that is the source for billions of dollars in taxpayer funding.

That's why Mr Hansen's paper, so not to look like a total Smuck, insists the ''stand-still of global temperatures'' is a short-term phenomenon within a long-term trend. Those little carbon dioxide molecules, that are the byproduct of economic progress, are still setting the stage for the end-of-days. The apocalypse is just on holiday for a while.  But after being ridiculed by the climate-change establishment, it's nice to know us climate realists were right all along.

Obama's Speech Reflects Uncompromising Left-wing Agenda !

Republicans and conservative groups criticized Barack Obama's second-term inauguration speech yesterday as a too-liberal, one-sided address that failed to extend a much-needed olive branch to the all Americans and all parties. This, dyed-in-the-wool Marxist's words were code for a progressive agenda. I was hoping that the president would recognize that compromise should have been the words in his speech. He clearly did not. I guess Joe Biden's earlier comment that ''the President is no more Mr Nice Guy!'' has gone to his head.  His previous enormous ego and arrogance were further enhanced by his re-election.

In his address, Obama spoke of the strides in civil rights of gays, women and African Americans, and of immigration reform, gun control and climate change -- but he steered clear of any bipartisan outreach.  '' I would have liked to have seen some outreach,'' Arizona Senator John McCain said. ''This is the eighth inauguration that I've been to and always there's been a portion of the speech where the president says 'I reach out my hand because we need to work together.' That wasn't in this speech. He reached out to various special groups -- gays, minorities, feminists, the poor, immigrants. But to Republicans he offered not even a vague desire to meet them halfway on taxes, spending or anything else.''  So where is he actually moving Forward  too??

Ohio Senator Rob Portman found parts of Obama's address ''more like a campaign speech'' and said he thought the president ''missed an opportunity to point out where we can find common ground. Instead, he chose to talk about it in the abstract, and then his specificity was on things he believes but were not issues where we as a Congress and the executive branch can make progress -- I'm referring to the debt and deficit and tax reform.''  Fred Barnes, executive editor of  The Weekly Standard wrote in the Wall Street Journal, ''In effect, Obama endorsed the entire liberal (leftist) agenda as the guiding star of his next four years in the White House.''

When Obama took office in January, 2009, he inherited an unemployment rate of 7.3%. Fours years and a $1.2 trillion stimulus bill later, it has risen to 7.8%.  Under Obama, the number of people who gave up on work or finding a job ballooned by 8,332,000 to a record 88,839,000! Instead of ''Hope & Change'', Obama has offered only hopelessness, bitter personal attacks and politics....as usual. I wonder how many of these people voted for him? In spite what hopes the voters had in him to fix the country's problems, his White House continues to be very confrontational rather than cooperative.

The Way I See It....the president unequivocally confirmed that he believes, like any committed Marxist, that government is good....needs to regulate more....and bigger government can drive innovation and prosperity for the country, even if it ''kills'' the Land of the Free & the Home of the Brave in the process.  At this point in time, with the Soviet Union on the ash heap of history, the socialist method isn't going to work anymore. The speech read like a liberal ''how-to-buy-votes laundry list with global warming at the top.

I think Obama believes it, I think he's sincere, but it's still strange. He doesn't realize that the planet hasn't warmed for the past 16 years and research is showing it is not CO2 as the culprit either. Americans have rejected environmental extremism in the past and they will again. Former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said of Obama's reference to climate change, ''He doesn't get it, his cronies in government don't get it....the great energy revolution we're living through is called 'Oil and Gas'. We are going to be the leading exporters, not importers anymore, of these products. Our future prosperity depends on it, so you don't throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater.''  I couldn't agree more.

The Worms Are Beginning To Turn !

Here's an interesting article on the Web today relating to England's blizzard-like conditions this week...which I mentioned in my last posting. Very, very few senior politicians dare to challenge the global warming ''consensus'' even now, after 16 years of NO warming. It seems political suicide to challenge the latest faith of the cultural elite. Ask Australia's Opposition Leader Tony Abbott about the crap he gets. Then there is the ignorant wonderboy Barack Obama in his inauguration speech today parroting the same warmist party line about bringing down CO2 to help sustain our planet's biosphere. You'll be seeing more billions of American's tax money going to waste for a baseless cause and deeper in debt.

One exception has been Czech President Vaclav Klaus wrote an excellent book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles (What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom). In it he wrote, ''Environmentalism is a political movement that originally began with the protection of the environment -- a humble and even legitimate goal -- but has gradually transformed itself into an ideology that has almost nothing to do with nature. It is a movement that intends to radically change the world regards of the consequences (at the cost of human lives and severe restrictions on individual freedom)''. but now comes another, London mayor Boris Johnson, seen as a future contender for leadership of Britain's Conservative Party. What's important is not so much the argument he puts, but that he dares to put it:
           -- I remember snow that used to come and settle for just long enough for a single decent snowball fight before turning to slush; I don't remember winters like this. Two days ago I was going through Trafalgar Square and saw icicles on the traffic lights; I haven't seen that before. I am all for theories about climate change, and would not for a moment dispute the wisdom or good intentions of the majority of scientists.
         -- But I am also an empiricist; and I observe that something appears to be up with our weather, and to call it ''warming'' is obviously to strain the language. I wish I knew more about what is going on, and why. It was time to consult the learned astrophysicist, Piers Corbyn.  (Editor: Piers Corbyn's climate analysis is based on ''The Solar Weather Technique''. The technique ''combines statistical analysis over a century of historical weather patterns and clues derived from solar observations.'')  His method has high accuracy in predicting weather in the short and long term.
          -- I found when the solar ''acne'' diminishes, it seems that the Earth gets colder. No one contests that when the planet palpably cooled from 1645 - 1715 at the Maunder Minimum, which saw the freezing of the Thames, there was a diminution of solar activity. The same point is made point is made about the so-called Dalton Minimum from 1790 - 1850. And it is the view of Piers Corbyn that we are now seeing exactly the same phenomenon today.
         -- Piers says, ''There is every indication that we are at the beginning of a mimi ice age. The general decline in solar activity is lower than NASA's lowest prediction of five years ago. That could be very bad news for our climate. We are in for a prolonged cold period. Indeed, we could have 30 years of general cooling.''  I am speaking only as layman who observes that there is plenty of snow in our winters these days and across Europe, and who wonders whether it might be time for governments to start taking seriously the possibility, however remote, that Corbyn is right....we need to have an open mind and hold on to our wallets.

The Way I See It....Johnson is most definitely right. It is now proper for senior politicians to keep an open mind on global warming, and especially when deciding whether to spend billions to ''stop'' it. After all, there is a lot of debate about solar activity and its effect on the climate. But more scientists are coming around and taking the Sun's influence more seriously. This was through no small part by Henrik Svensmark and his work at the Danish National Space Center on the interplay of the clouds, the Sun and cosmic rays showing that these have more effect on the climate than man-made carbon dioxide. He published his findings in a book entitled, The Chilling Stars with help of Nigel Calder.and concluded that ''nothing but scientific due diligence and not computer models will reveal the evidence we seek.''

Let have Piers Corbyn have the last word: ''The anthropogenic contribution to global warming is minimal with any increase in temperature due to increased solar activity, but that's changed now with decreased solar activity. Carbon Dioxide has never driven, does not drive and never will drive weather or climate. Global warming is over and it never was anything to do with CO2. CO2 is still rising but the world is now cooling and will continue to do so.''  Enough said??



We've Been Snowed By The ''Experts'' !

Hold on to your Parkas people !  In 2000, scientists at perhaps the world's centre of global warming alarmism issued this prediction: ''According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become 'a very, very rare and exciting event.'''  Well, I hope Dr Viner is excited by being in the ''thick of it'' with further snow expected to blanket the UK for the next week, with no end to the freezing conditions in sight!  Western Europe is feeling the excitement too. Three days ago Moscow was on the verge of a traffic collapse as more than 10 inches (25 cm) of snow fell on the city, which is more than half of January's average. In the end of 2012, Russia saw extreme winter not witnessed since 1938, where in Siberia temperatures fell below -50 degrees Celsius. I really don't think global warming is working out as the experts predicted.

As the UK Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 16 years, NASA scientists are saying ''Forget Global Warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about! It confirms that the rising trend in world temps ended in 1997. The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw ''frost fairs'' held on London's Thames River in the 17th Century(see photo). Scientists say that after emitting high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ''grand minimum'' in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the food growing season.

Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak. We are now what should be the peak of what scientists call ''Cycle 24'' -- but sunspot numbers are running less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the last century. This suggests that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still. It is possible that the solar energy ''slump'' could be as deep as the Maunder Minimum (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the Little Ice Age when, as well as the Thames ''Frost Fairs'', the canals of Holland froze solid. It's worth noting that TIME magazine ran a front page story in 1974 explaining that Russian scientists were warning of a coming ice age within the next 100-200 years.

''World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,'' says Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark's National Space Institute. ''It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. You would think that any fool would surmise that. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help'', he added. '' CO2 levels have continued to rise without interruption while warming has flattened out showing a significant disrelationship between the two. CO2 is not a motivator for global warming...the sun's influence needs to be taken seriously.''

Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University in North Carolina, is the author of several papers that argue that Met Office climate models are showing an increasing divergence between the models and the latest recorded data. He said, ''Eventually the difference will become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories.''  He believes the Met Office model attaches much greater significance to poor little CO2 (which only makes up 0.0384% of the atmosphere) than to the sun. Meanwhile, one of America's most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office's prediction of the the sun's ''negligible impact'' difficult to understand. "The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that the models may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun.'' As for the warming pause, she said that many scientists ''are not surprised''.

The Way I See It....it is becoming evident that factors other than CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth. Admittedly, I prefer a warmer climate, as statistically, more people die in cold weather than hot. But I'm afraid, with Cycle 25 coming,  the Sun will let us down in the coming decades with more cooling.  I'm happy to say that Al Gore won't be getting his ''tipping point''.

Nature is about to carry out a very interesting experiment, Ten or fifteen years from now, we will be able to determine much better whether the warming of the late 20th Century really was caused by man-made CO2 , or by natural variability (like volcanos, the Sun or the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans). We're now in the second decade of the pause. If we don't see convincing evidence of global warming by 2015, it will start to become clear whether the models are bunk. And, if they are, the implications for some scientists, the major media, James Hansen and Al Gore could be very serious from an angry public.

The Exaggeration Of A Global Sea Change !

The continued astonishing alarmism over climate change comes when the number of cyclones (hurricanes) has fallen, the ''permanent'' drought in Australia has broken, the predicted biannual bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef has not occurred, the predicted disappearance of Himalayan, Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets hasn't happen and actually reversed and above-all the predicted horrendous consequences of global warming has stalled for 16 years. Note also that when it comes to real climate change, we've seen nothing in the past half century that the world hasn't already experienced worse.

German veteran meteorologist Klaus-Eckart Puls has done an analysis of sea level rise. Contrary to claims made by fringe alarmists, we see that sea level rise has decelerated markedly since 2003. In his report, Puls writes that even NASA launched satellites TOPEX and JASON 1 + 2 show no acceleration. ''The acceleration calculated by the computer models and constantly reported by the media does not exist!''  Puls adds; ''It is obvious to see that the sea level rise has slowed down significantly. What is certain is that there is neither a ''dramatic'' rise, nor an ''acceleration'', thereby concluding that climate models over the past 20 years are wrong.''  In reality, sea level rises are at a modest rate of 1.8 mm a year -- about in line with a natural trend over the century. So all those Pacific Island countries who have their hands out for United Nations largess to save them will have to wait quite a bit longer.

There is a general consensus stating that ocean temperatures have climbed  by a modest half a degree (Celsius) in the past century and an assertion that ocean acidity has increased due to atmospheric carbon dioxide and will therefore be harmful to reefs everywhere. However....the latest research, published last month in Nature: Climate Change Today, blows away the theory that reefs were doomed due to rising ocean levels and acidification caused by the higher take-up of carbon dioxide in the seas.

Researchers have found a common coralline algae that grows at the leading edge of coral reefs is not as susceptible to changing ph levels as coral because it contains high levels of dolomite. ''Our research suggests it is likely these algae will continue to provide protection for coral reef frameworks as carbon dioxide rises,'' the paper reported. Further counter-intuitive results on coral survival have come from an extended project on Australia's Great Barrier Reef to measure the health of deep corals. It was the Catlin Seaview Survey that found the damage to coral reefs is literally ''skin-deep'', with corals located in deeper water below even the worst impacted sites thriving and in pristine condition. The findings raise the possibility that damaged corals may have an increased opportunity for recovery by recruiting new corals both from adjoining reefs and located immediately below. The early findings from this survey have astounded the scientists involved, including Ove Hoegh-Guldberg who has been feeding at the government ''grants trough'' for the past 10 years tapping into and promoting the-warming's-killing-the-reefs hysteria.

The Way I See It....sea level change has been a constant characteristic of earth's systems. 20,000 years ago oceans were estimated to be 140 meters below current levels and 100,000 years before that, the level of the sea is estimated at 4-6 meters above today's level. Glacial melting as the last ice age ended between 20,000 and 6000 ago resulted in sea level rise rates in ranges of 1 meter per century up to a rate of 4 meters per century.

The coral reefs have existed on this planet for 440,000 years and have endured major and minor sea level rises over that time and have adapted and survived  through it all, even when the Earth's atmosphere experienced much higher CO2 concentrations. Now the Earth is in a relatively mild epoch after coming out of the Little Ice Age (1550 - 1850) and gradually warming up on its own without major human influence. So...CHILL!  We'll be so much richer in a century and I suspect we'll be able to afford to adapt to anything coming our way....and hopefully it's not another ice age!

NOTE:  Read my previous posting concerning reefs entitled:  Warming gives us MORE reefs ! (June 19th, 2011)

It's Only Climate When It's Hot !

Australia was visited this week by the scruffy-looking Chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (I.P.C.C.), Rajendra Pachauri (photo), to talk with government ministers and no doubt join the Greens in gloating over the very hot weather on the Australian continent. Yes, various parts of our country have been alternatingly ''sweltering'' through a heatwave that has been ongoing since the beginning of the year. It's been the longest run of above 39 degree Celsius days since 1973 (before the was ever a thought of global warming). Hundreds of fires are burning throughout the country right now, but, as a firefighter said on TV the other day, ''it's not caused by the high heat but by the enormous amount of vegetation grown from the last 2 years of frequent rainfall and lightening striking the now dried-out vegetation''.

My daughter and her family just returned from a week in Los Angeles to see Disneyland and said they experienced temperatures that fell to 34 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking the previous record of 36 set on January 14th, 2007. A friend on mine, a week or two ago, was caught outside in Boston in the coldest weather he ever felt when the temperature dropped to 7 degrees, just one degree warmer than its low in 2012. He read that there was bone-chilling cold in nearby Vermont and upstate New York down to -10 to -20 degrees, colder than anything experienced all last winter. I wouldn't be so stupid or dishonest as to claim that weather in one part of the world says anything about climate everywhere, but it's ''food for thought''.

Last month in the state of Victoria, which was the first to feel the heat, they recorded the hottest day in a north-west small town in which temperatures reached 46 degrees Celsius. Alarmists swung into action to exploit this freak of hot weather, saying ''according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) people better get used to it -- they'll become more common as a result of climate change.''  A couple of days later the mercury in Canberra (Australia's capital a 100 kilometers to the east) plummeted to 0.3 degrees overnight -- the coldest December minimum on record. Of course the was no mention of climate change this time. There was a duty forecaster from the Canberra office of BoM that said, ''it's what we call an air-mass change.''  And presently, there is still no mention of the normal hot airmass in the middle of arid Australia that was wind-shifted to the southern and eastern states. It's not EXTREME weather....it's just weather doing what it always does.....VARY  A  HELL'VA  LOT! 

Now I found a global lobby group has distributed a ''spin sheet'' encouraging its 300 member organisations to emphasise the link between climate change and ''extreme weather events'', despite uncertainties acknowledged by the I.P.C.C. An ''action pack'' distributed by Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA) said members ''shouldn't be afraid to make the connection'' despite the low level of confidence in the official documents of the IPCC. The action pack which was produced to coincide with the release of the latest full IPCC report, which said it was unable to answer confidently whether climate was becoming more extreme, rekindled claims that overstating the case by warmist alarmists was damaging the credibility of the science. The GCCA has about 300 members worldwide including Marxist, anti-capitalist, neo-fascists like Greenpeace, Oxfam, World Wildlife Fund, Environmental Defence Fund, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Amnesty International and many other of similar ilk. What's important to these extremists is not the evidence but the scare.


The Way I See It....it is grotesque how Labor and the Greens scare-mongering has so terrified so many people. Consider the following facts: it was 3 degrees warmer in the world when the Vikings found Greenland in 950 AD (it was Green!), it was 1850 when the first temperature records were started just as the ''Little Ice Age'' (1550-1850) was finishing so obviously all temperture reading would rise as the earth warmed up again, however the world has stopped warming in the past 16 years. Those fantastic NASA and IPCC computer predictions are defunct and the BoM is even predicting basically ''no further global warming for at least four more years'' giving us a total of 20 years to think how stupid so many were. Those who have left so many people so scared are no friends of humanity. I blame the media which was, and still is, too complicit to hold them to account. Let's rely on man's astonishing technology and ability to adapt to anything Mother Nature wants to test us with in the future and not on the Cult-of-Environmentalism.

Al Gore Foiled: Himalyan Glaciers Grow Back !

With high-altitude mountains in northern India's Himachal Pradesh region experiencing up to 100 cm of fresh snowfalls in November, is living up to it's translated name...''region of snowy mountains.'' After 10 years the abundance of snow on the mountains has rejuvenated nearly one thousand glaciers and has ensured an uninterrupted supply of water for drinking and irrigation. Don't tell me Al Gore was exaggerating again!  That Inconvenient Truth movie is turning out to be ''Inconvienent Lies''.

Even after years of research on glaciers and climate of the Himalayas, scientists have failed to learn the pattern of the weather here. While scanty snowfalls and steady temperatures in the last decade had sparked the possibilities of fast shrinking of glaciers, good spells of snowfall in the last three years have changed the trend with glaciers where they have almost grown to their original size. I'm sure you won't be hearing from Mr Gore about this great news.

Some scientists say even if the summers seemed hotter lately, the extreme cold in winters have been neutralizing the minor effect of of those summer temperatures. Overall, the speed of the melting glaciers has reduced over the past few years due to the good snowfalls. This is not what Al Gore was saying three years ago, when he was constantly warning that a billion people in the Indian subcontinent would run out of water by now.

This improves even the good news that was reported a few months earlier and again, not publicized in the brainwashed ''lame-stream'' media; ''New research shows the world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgystan, have lost NO  ICE over the last decade!'' headlined the report. The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50 billion tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfalls. Bristol University glaciologist Professor Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, said; ''The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high Asian mountains which can be described as 0%.''

The Way I See It.....the study was the first serious survey, getting away from the lately-proven unreliability of computer models, of all the world's icecaps and glaciers and was made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall, the contribution of melting ice including the two largest icecaps in Greenland and Antarctica is much less than previously estimated by these models, with the lack of ice loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy.

One point of fact is that much of Antarctica's ice covering has actually increased by 200% in the last two years, while the Arctic ice sheet has broken up. The record Antarctic sea ice cover was revealed in satellite images from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado. At the end of the southern winter (in September), ice covered 7.51 million square miles of sea -- more than at any time since records began in 1979. For the last 30 years the amount Antarctica sea ice has been increasing by 1%  each decade.  Which is why there has been, or will be in the foreseeable future, no rise in ocean sea levels as Mother Earth balances things out globally.

Pap Test Puts Some Pep in Cancer Diagnosis !

In the next few years we'll probably find that women will be actually looking forward to spreading their legs for that all-important PAP TEST. A new study suggests that the ''embarassing'' Pap Test, which has prevented countless deaths from cervical cancer, may now help in detecting cancers of the uterus and ovaries as well.

For the first time, researchers have found genetic material from uterine or ovarian cancers in Pap smears, meaning that it should become possible to detect three diseases with just one routine test. The research is early and needing a few years to refine before being a part in regular medical practice. The women studied were already known to have cancer and while the Pap Test found 100% of uterine cancers, it detected only 45% of the ovarian cancers. On the other hand, even a 45% detection rate would be better than the status quo the exists in ovarian cancer, particularly if the detection extends to early stages. The disease is usually advanced by the time it is found and survival rates are poor. Uterine cancer has a better prognosis. Improved tests are urgently needed.

These innovative applications of the Pap Test are part of a new era in which advances in genetics are being applied to the detection of a wide variety of cancers and precancerous conditions. Scientists are learning to find minute bits of mutant DNA in tissue samples or bodily fluids that may signal the presence of hidden or incipient cancers. Ideally, the new techniques would find the abnormalities early enough to cure the disease or even prevent it entirely. Bit it is too soon to tell.

''Is this the harbinger of things to come? I would answer Yes,'' said Dr Bert Vogelstein, director of the Ludwig Center of Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics at John Hopkins University, and a senior author of a report on the Pap study published in the Journal of Science & Translational Medicine. He said genomes of more than 50 types of tumors had been sequenced, and researchers are taking advantage of the new information. Similar studies are under way or are being considered to look for mutant DNA in blood, stool, urine and sputum, both to detect cancer and also to monitor the response to treatment in people known to have the disease.

Dr Christopher P. Crum, a professor at Harvard Medical School who was not involved in the research called the study ''a great proof of principle. Any whisper of hope to women who suffer from endometrial or ovarian cancer would be most welcome.''  Dr Vogelstein and his team hit on the idea to try DNA testing Pap smears for cancer. They theorized that cells or DNA shed from cancers of the ovaries and uterine lining (endometrium) might reach the cervix and turn up in Pap smears. The team picked common mutations found in these cancers, and looked for them in tumor samples. All the cancers had one or more of the common mutations. Using a control sample of 15 healthy women, the test found no mutations -- meaning no false-positive results.

Dr Luis A. Diaz, the other senior author of the report stated, ''probably one of the most exciting features of this approach is that we wanted a test that would seamlessly integrate with routine medical practice that could be utilized with the same test that women get every day all over the world, the Pap smear.''   But, he added; ''We can't say it's ready for prime time. Like all good science, it needs to be validated a while longer.''  He and other members of the team are working hard to improve the detection rate for ovarian cancer by looking for more mutations by changing their technique slightly.

The Way I See It....the technique also needs to be tested in much larger groups of women, including healthy ones, to find out whether it works, particularly at finding cancers early enough to improve survival. And the studies must also find out whether it generates false positive results. This is a step toward a screening test that at first blush appears very effective at detecting such nasty cancers in women. It's very promising, in part because it is based on finding mutations, it  tells you not just that cancer is there but which mutation is there so treatment could be more specific. Now women will have a lot to smile about.

H-F Corn Syrup Blamed For Obesity Epidemic !

High-Fructose Corn Syrup is a ubiquitous man-made sweetener that's linked to a host of health problems. One can debate the wisdom of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's war on larger-size sodas by having his Health Commissioner Thomas Farley (see photo) issue bans on selling large-sized soft drinks in the New York city area, but health experts across the political spectrum agree on this much: American's sweet tooth is killing them.

The world-wide consumption of sugar has been linked to numerous health problems, including the current obesity epidemic. Many experts believe the main malefactor is not real sugar but a particular man-made form of sugar: high-fructose con syrup (HFCS). Things got sticky not long after it began flooding our food supply in the decade of 1975 to 1985.  ''We can trace the obesity epidemic back to the introduction of high-fructose corn syrup,'' says top American cardiologist Dr Chauncey Crandall. He adds, ''If you drink sweetened colas, eat cereals, fruit juice drinks, crackers, candy, cookies breads, baby foods, or buy processed foods, you can be sure you're ingesting HFCS.''  It's a man-made version of fructose produced by processing cornstarch.

As the amount of HFCS has increased ubiquitously in our diets, so have our waistlines, along with the health problems including Type 2 diabetes. But is HFCS really to blame? Should the government step in and ban its use?  Presently, there is no doubt among health officials that our sweet tooth has contributed to the spiraling rates of obesity; recent studies indicate that HFCS is more to blame than mere cane sugar.  Researchers at Texas Southwest Medical Center found the fructose is turned into fat by the body more quickly than other sugars, such as cane sugar. They found that when fructose was eaten with a fatty meal of a cheeseburger, fries and soft drink -- the fat is much more likely to be stored rather than burned and used for energy.

Dr Crandell says, ''that it also bypasses the normal mechanisms that turn off hunger, unlike real sugar, which turns off hunger signals in the central nervous system. In addition to causing overeating, the sweetener can increase weight gain even when no extra calories are consumed.  Researchers at Princeton University found that rats fed HFCS gained 47% more weight than rats who were fed an equal number of calories, but no corn syrup.''  I have discovered a new UCLA study showing that HFCS may have another adverse effect. They found when rats were fed a fructose solution in place of their drinking water of six weeks, their ability to think and remember was hampered. Specifically, it affected their ability to navigate a maze. The UCLA professor of neurology offered these words of warning: ''Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain's ability to think and remember information, making you Dumb as well as Fat!''

British researchers found that if fructose is present when children's fat cells are maturing, more cells become belly fat. A large waistline increases the risk of many problems including cardiovascular disease metabolic syndrome and certain cancers. They found that fructose decreased the body's sensitivity to insulin -- a characteristic of Type 2 Diabetes. In addition, a study published in last year's Journal of Nutrition found a correlation between diets high in HFCS and markers for heart disease in teens.

The Way I See It....High-Fructose Corn Syrup is one of the biggest health problems today. Should the government control the use of HFCS?  Usually, I'm not a fan of Big Brother, as you know from some my previous postings, telling us what to do or not to do, however, there are instances where we need government protection. Right now, we have countries where more than have of their citizens are overweight and one-third are obese. In this instance, I think governments should take action and remove high-fructose corn syrup from our food supply.

GRAPHENE: New Miracle Material !

Imagine Ipads as thin as credit cards, mobile phones you can roll up like paper, and airplanes that don't weigh much more than their passengers and fuel. These and many other stunning advances are possible in the near future because of a new material called Graphene that is being hailed by research teams around the world as the plastic of the 21st century.

Harder than a diamond and more elastic than rubber, it's a carbon lattice that is just one atom thick, and almost transparent. It sounds flimsy, but it's not (see photo). Graphene is the strongest material ever produced by man. "It's 200 times stronger than structural steel,'' says mechanical engineering professor James Hone of Columbia University. "It would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil, to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of Saran (plastic) Wrap.''

Although its existence was first theorized in 1947, a Soviet-trained scientist, Andre Geim, was the first to isolate graphene in a serendipitous moment in a lab in Manchester, England, in 2003. In those 10 years since, scientists are just now starting to understand its potential, and it could bring a wide-ranging revolution that will likely affect everyone. Three million sheets of graphene are only one millimeter thick, so its use as a component of incredibly strong composite materials could transform air travel and transportation. A new generation of lightweight, superstrong planes and cars could go further on much less fuel. Researchers have discovered it's the best conductor of heat and electricity ever known -- 1000 times more efficient than copper.

IBM's new graphene transistor is the fastest in the world, nearly four times faster than a conventional silicone equivalent. Engineers at the University of Texas have discovered that by replacing the carbon used in ultra-capacitors with graphene, it's possible to store double the amount of energy. Speaking of energy, Northwestern University has found that a specially crafted graphene electrode can allow a lithium-ion battery to store 10 times as much power and charge 10 times faster -- and last longer too! This means graphene makes it possible for a battery to be 10 times smaller than today's, but with the same capacity. Such a battery is the holy grail of electric car manufacturers. It can also be used to produce auto tires that last for a life of the car and superstrong composite tanks for hydrogen-fueled cars.

The biggest challenge now is producing high-quality graphene on an industrial scale. The Koreans are already making and selling plenty of graphene. The Korean electronics giant Samsung is now producing a touchscreen using the material.  So far, the largest sheet of graphene produced is 30 inches square (7.6 cm), developed by Korean and Japanese researchers. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers are working on an industrial scale ''printing press' to crack out large sheets of graphene, but ''this is just the beginning'' says Geim.

The Way I See It....there will never be a shortage of raw material because graphene is made from carbon, the forth most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen, helium and oxygen. Rice University's professor, James Tour, says, ''You can make graphene from just about anything, plastic waste, grass, sugar -- anything with carbon in it. Theoretically, the process to make graphene should be environmentally friendly.''

Geim  and co-researcher professor Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 2010 for their work on graphene...and rightly so. ''Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again,'' said the judges. I can see that really, the possibilities of graphene are limited only by our imagination.

Goodbye, Lisa Jackson !

Sometimes ''good riddance'' just doesn't suffice. It is hard to imagine a bureaucrat who has done more comprehensive damage to American interests than Lisa Jackson, the departing head of the Environmental Protection Agency. This person, is a cross between the stupidity and arrogance of Roseanne Barr and the evil-intent of the wicked queen in Snow White. In four years as administrator, she has put her radical environmental agenda before the wellbeing of the U.S. economy, the integrity of science and even the structure of the American political system itself.

Starting with her regulatory record. Since January, 2009, Jackson's EPA has issued 20 ''major'' regulations -- defined as rules with an economic cost of $100 million or more each year. These 20 rules carried a total initial cost of $7 billion....a painful capital expenditure demanded of businesses that were swinging-in-the-breeze trying to meet compliance standards.  That's was just for starters. These 20 major regulations carry an annual cost of 44.8 billion -- that's right, each and every year! It would be one thing if businesses and consumers paid that amount each year as taxes, which would still hurt but it would at least make a dent in the deficit, but these cost aren't even taxes. They're 44.8 billion in sheer waste; money that would otherwise be used productively in the U.S. economy.

Under this bitch's leadership, the EPA has issued a whooping 1,824 regulations. In comparison, the Department of Energy issued 83; the Department of Labor, 76; and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 51. Furthermore, more than 2 dozen additional rules are pending review and are already designated as major. Jackson's legacy is much like the regulatory legacy of the Obama's Marxist administration in general, which is hyper-regulatory. Remember my previous posting exposing Obama's over 1000  Executive Orders that intentionally bypassed the Congress?

Jackson's prolific rule making has taken a toll on employment. Seven EPA rules targeted at electricity producers will cost 1.5 million jobs in the next four years alone, according to a report published last October by the National Economic Research Centre. And stupidly seeking to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles, Jackson's 2010 ruling carries an annual 10.4 billion cost and destroyed around 50,000 auto-industry jobs. These are just two examples of many and yet the ignorant American public voted these incompetent deadshits back in. These rules drive up costs on everything from cars to power to consumer goods and at a time when Americans are cash-starved; as of December, 7.8% were unemployed and an additional 17.1% were underemployed.

Given Jackson's assault across the productive elements of the economy, it's a wonder things aren't worse. They could quite easily have been. A year ago she tried to regulate (read Stop) fracking. In fact it provided a classic example of how the EPA, under her leadership, misused, manipulated and outrightly ignored science. She claimed that fracking was contaminating ground water and a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The EPA based its entire conclusion on a mere four samples, too few to effectively test its hypothesis besides the EPA's report was at best sloppy and at worst willfully deceptive.

That's not the only time the EPA has come under fire for shoddy scientific methods. Jackson has a long history of putting politics before science. Jackson has a consistent record of pursuing her extremist environment agenda without much consideration for the U.S. political system just like her devious boss...B.H.O. Like in 2009, she classified carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant...tell that to the plants! Cato's Michaels did a comprehensive fact check of the EPA study underpinning the CO2 decision and found numerous flaws. Michaels, as chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology stated, " the Endangerment Finding from carbon dioxide is based upon a terribly flawed document on climate change in the United States. In my opinion, it is based upon the worst summary of climate research ever produced by federal researchers.''  Unfortunately, Jackson was still able to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act, cutting Congress out of the regulatory process.

The Way I See It....Jackson's willful disregard for American democracy is reflected in the type of President and the leftist cronies populating his administration. If she's willing to ignore the legislative branch, why not the judicial one, too? Her fuel-economy standards were drafted in the language of the ancient Persians, that will endure long after not only her tenure but also the President's. More people will die in car accidents as car's structure and sheet metal gets thinner in the industry's effort to squeeze out more miles-per-gallon.

The real problem lies in Jackson's misguided environment goals, which have been radical from the start. She has believed Al Gore's bullshit on climate change...hook-line-and-sinker. I must say she isn't quite unprincipled -- on the contrary, her commitment to greenness at all costs seems fervently devout. But her pursuit of these ideals ignores all other considerations -- economic, scientific and political.  The policies she sought simply harm too many people and yield too few benefits. Unfortunately for the U.S. economy, she is an unelected bureaucrat, and a tremendously dictatorial one at that. Her record speaks for itself -- since the American people weren't given much of a chance to. If they did, they would say, ''Goodbye, Lisa Jackson.....good riddance to bad rubbish!''

How The Green ''Taliban'' Spreads Its Poison Gospel !

Quite probably you missed the big story in early last month's Independent that, according to a ''think tank'', the economy of Britain would be 20 billion Pounds a year better off if it focused on wind power.  Well-known journalist James Delingpole in response to this idea said, "Personally, I'd put more faith in the scheme mooted by the Daily Mash to pay off the national debt by breeding Unicorns and selling them to the Chinese at 250,000 pounds a pop. But the difference is that the Daily Mash is a satirical publication whereas the Independent -- at least in theory -- is not.''

Thankfully, it was Richard North on his Eurefendum blog, that made the effort to assess the reliability of the source. He stated, ''Turning to the source of this wisdom, we find the ''think tank'' originator named as Cambridge Econometrics , but to call it a think tank is something of a misnomer. What is interesting here is that Cambridge Econometrics seems to be a very profitable company, which turns over a cool 2 million pounds plus each year and giving its owner, Dr Terry Barker, a very comfortable living, plus pension. And Dr Barker has a certain amount of baggage.''

Mr Delingpole has discovered that having founded the company in 1985, Dr Barker became a member of of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research (University of Cambridge), as well as being on the Scientific Advisory Board of the World Wide Views on Global Warming, plus a member of the editorial boards of international journals of Climate Strategies and Management & the International Journal of Global Warming. This is a warmist personified, which might suggest certain bias in his approach to the subject of windfarms. And, if that isn't enough to set an odoriferous rat running, we found that the report itself is produced for Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund-UK  which funded the work.

Still, let's briefly give this report the benefit of the doubt. Just because it was commissioned by two violently anti-capitalist, Marxist-controlled, deep-green activist organisations with a strong antipathy to fossil fuels and an ideological commitment to ''renewable'' energy and just because it was written by a fanatical warmist with a powerful vested interest in skewing the report's message in a particular direction doesn't necessarily make it a farrago of unutterable drivel and nonesense. Does it ?

So let us instead apply some incredibly basic, entry-level commonsense. Here's what we know about wind power: Onshore wind power requires 100% subsidy from government/taxpayer/energy user. (It's what bankrupted Spain!) Offshore wind requires 200% subsidy. Not a single wind farm anywhere in the world would be economically viable without this state-enforced support. Beside being far less cost-effective than ANY form of fossil fuel power, the energy produced by wind -- being obviously intermittent and unpredictable and invariably unavailable on the coldest and hottest days when its most needed.-- is essentially worthless in any free market. And before we start considering the hidden costs of wind which I exposed in my July 27th (2012) blog, The Green Movement's Inconvenient Truths: the destruction it wreaks on bats and birds; the health risks of low frequency noise; the blight it inflicts on property prices; the near-irreparable damage it inflicts on the natural landscape...turning the Greens beloved Mother Earth into a whore of the big environmentalist agenda.

And here's what we know about gas power. Relative to wind it is cheap, efficient and clean. In the U.S. the shale gas revolution has not only brought the U.S. closer to energy independence but it has more than halved the price of gas with a healthy knock-on effect on prosperity and economic efficiency. Mr Delingpole concludes; ''Therefore we cannot unreasonably conclude that this ''think tank's'' report's conclusion in indeed a hotch-potch of unutterable drivel and nonsense. And that it was at best irresponsible, at worst an exercise in aggressive, dishonest political activism quite unbecoming in a newspaper of record, for the Independent to run such a story - without even mentioning that it was the watermelons at Greenpeace and the WWF which commissioned this violently one-sided report.'' 

The Way I See It....we have a problem here. A big problem. The British government and its useful idiots in the media are lying their citizens about the state of the economy, thus making it impossible for those not prepared to dig beneath the surface spin to make an informed judgement. But what Greenpeace and WWF and the rest of the Green Taliban are up to, and more often than not get away with, is more frightening still. After all, people half expect the government to lie to them and at least they have the process whereby they can boot them out of office. With the New World Order  eco-fascists of the Green Taliban there is no corrective mechanism. There they are every day, pumping out junk science and Mickey Mouse economics reports which then get written up -- virtually straight off the Press Release -- by unquestioning, starry-eyed environmental correspondents and served up to a gullible public which believes it must be true. Not only that, but all too frequently these diehard scum are invited to participate in high-level government discussions on environmental policy, as if somehow, they were disinterested ecological experts rather than hardcore green activists.

NOTE:  James Delingpole points to the scumbag politician who ''played main part in the despoliation of our matchless landscape with view-blighting, fuel-poverty-creating, sleep-denying, sick-making, flood-exacerbating, price-inflating, property-value-trashing, greed-stoking, puke-making, bird-slicing, bat-chomping eco-crucifixes.....I'm taking about the North London Marxist trustafarian ovoid who was secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, more responsible than any main or creature alive for establishing the framework for Britain's disastrous wind policy....Ed Miliband!  His divisive and confrontational ''scorched earth'' policy has sowed the seeds of the current crisis and now stands laughing on the sidelines as the coalition struggles to cope with the democractic resistance created by the crass insensitivity, injustice and willful blindness of his policies.  This bastard should rot-in-hell!

Bin Laden Finder Should Be Freed !

I think that most people remember where they were on September 11, 2001. I believe many also remember where they were on May 2nd, 2011, when Seal Team 6 infiltrated the compound and killed Osama bin Laden. I just read the fascinating account of that mission, written by one of the members of Seal Team 6, in a book entitled No Easy Day, by Mark Owen and Kevin Maurer.What was not mentioned in the book was that in the weeks leading up to the attack on the compound there was a doctor in Pakistan who help the Americans determine bin Laden's exact location.

Doctors are not soldiers, but doctors are taught to heal and help. Dr Shakl Afridi helped in the only way he knew how -- through the use of his medical education. He risked his own life to provide information that confirmed the particular location of the 3 story compound that housed bin Laden and his family.

Dr Afridi set up what was presumably a vaccination clinic near the bin Laden house and urged the occupants of the house to bring their children in for vaccinations. While there he took a DNA swab from their mouths and was able to confirm that some of the children were direct relatives of Osama bin Laden. This information was crucial to the military and civilian leaders to order the raid, and directly led to the killing of one of the world's mass murderers.. He should be rewarded or at the very least congratulated, but instead, Dr Afridi is in prison in Pakistan for the alleged crime of ''treason'' for his cooperation with the American intelligence agencies.

This is shameful and it is not what we should expect from a supposed ally of the United States, Dr Afridi is in prison for 33 years and many believe that Congress should take decisive action to protect this ally of the West. What I and many Americans find particularly troubling is that the U.S. continues to give money to Pakistan. Over $1 billion of taxpayer money, that the U.S. can ill-afford, is sent to Pakistan each year! When will Americans learn that you cannot buy good behavior? It is time for the Senate to prioritize their responsibilities to the American people.

The Way I See It....is a travesty that Pakistan has the nerve to hold Dr Afridi for the crime of helping America and the West in general when those bums in their leadership positions should have been pulling out all stops to find bin Laden on their own. Dr Afridi allowed them not to get their ''hands dirty'' and upset some portions of their archaic society. I do not understand why this is being tolerated by Congress and the slack Obama administration. I've heard of one Congressman that wants to bestow U.S. citizenship on Dr Afridi so he can legally be brought to America without question.

Recently, instead of withholding aid, President Obama gave Pakistan an additional billion dollars. That is exactly the wrong thing to do. I am outraged and I think the American people are too. That recent vote to continue aiding countries that burn the Stars & Stripes, imprison U.S. allies and murder their ambassadors without even one proviso that the perpetrators of these senseless acts must be brought to justice is a mystery to me. The misguided Obama government should not reward bad behavior, yet they keep doing it. The total U.S. foreign aid given to Pakistan, Libya and Egypt equals roughly $4 billion per year...PER YEAR !!!  Enough is enough!