Arctic sea ice nearing 9 year high

On our Resources page, down at the bottom, there's a nifty link to the IJIS webpage tracking the extent of Arctic sea-ice. You know, that ice that AlGore is still predicting to have disappeared completely within now and very soon.

Clicking on the link will bring you to a graph (reproduced below), showing the current Arctic sea ice level in comparison to the levels of years before, back to 2002. And clicking on it today we find that as it currently stands (March 31), 2009 Arctic sea ice extent matches that of 2002, which coincidentally is the year with the largest ice mass for this period.

Thus it seems that news of the demise of the North Pole are greatly exaggerated. Something you won't see on TV, hear on the radio or read in the paper, of course.

[UPDATE001] In the mean time, realizing that the AGW game is about up, those same lovely people are now regrouping for another assault on our environmental guilt: More CO2 causes 'ocean acidification' <insert wailing and gnashing of teeth here>. Head on over to WUWT for more, including the comments, which will point out how to quickly and easily debunk this latest attempt at green scare-mongering. '... second time as farce...', indeed!

[UPDATE002] Richard North reminds us that while the debate on the science of AGW is back in full swing, with the 'sceptics' seemingly on the winning side, the AGW agenda is still alive and kicking, hardly bruised by the blows to he science of climate change of the last few months:

The climate change scare is merely a front used to conceal on the one hand and, on the other, to legitimise a far more sinister movement which has at its root politics, power and money. (...)

The worst of this is that, to be implemented – even if on a phased basis – none of these measures need popular approval or legislative assent, other than the introduction of cap and trade in the US which, despite reports to the contrary, is still going ahead. Almost all the enabling mechanisms are already in place.

The danger – the very great danger – is that the sceptics who believe they are winning, and the many who believe that this is about science, and even global warming, are failing to understand what is going on, right under their noses. So far, we haven't laid a glove on them.

And that is depressing.

Freedom requires eternal vigilance, as a philosopher once said.

Deeply in the red

Helen Szamuely points us to a nice time line of the Grecian Euro Crisis, in which a number of experts raise doubts about the effectiveness of the deal (the non-bailout bailout) concocted last week.

On the same topic, Wretchard takes stock of the economies underpinning the Greek bailout. That is where we find all signals starting to flash red:

The real problem now is not whether there’s something to worry about, but how to get out from under. The terrible skeins are all coming together: the accumulated fecklessness, the foreign policy misjudgements, the deception and the unkeepable promises are gathering like a terrible storm. An entire era has come to the end of a joy-ride. The bill has come due; and everyone is doing a courtesy reach-around for his empty wallet hoping that someone else can pay for what they can’t.

Oh, happy days...

Nigel Farage on the EUnion and Lisbon

Nigel Farage gave an interview to the French website Ring. Helen Szamuely has a translation up at Your Freedom and Ours. I suggest to read the whole thing, but here are some choice snippets...

On whether the Turnip is a success or a failure:

Success and failure are highly subjective. If success means carte blanche for the members of the EU's élite to do whatever they like, in future, at the expense of the EU's formerly sovereign electorates, then, yes, they have succeeded. Don't let those minor squabbles between the institutions fool you! The EU-imperium has been launched and is stealthily building up steam.

However, from my point of view also, the Lisbon Treaty is a success, because it has demonstrated, more clearly than ever, that the EU's élite despises democracy and suffers from an incurable addiction to power. Some of the EU's most loyal supporters were appalled at the way it was introduced, if not (as they should also have been) by its content.

From every other point of view, the Lisbon Treaty is the worst failure - of political accountability, judicial process, constitutional propriety and governmental honesty - which I have ever had the misfortune to witness.

On the 'democratic deficit' of the EUnion:

Elections must be made meaningful, if we are to avoid being trapped in a kind of neo-feudal tyranny. This means unseating the pro-EU parties, which are indirectly funded with tax-payers money, and protected by the media (state and private) which are also in the EU's pocket. The extent of the EU's bribery of professional associations, trade unions, academic institutions, churches, charities and pressure groups, is staggering and must be exposed. The EU can then be kicked out of country after country, until we are able to establish a free association of sovereign, democratic electorates. I see no other way of escaping the horrible fate which the EU has designed for us.

To which we have nothing to add.

Fascists in the toy parliament

Follow-up up on our story about the luxurious expenses claims by our dear El Presidente:

The news about the massive expenses claim was not well-received by MEPs of the Party for Freedom (PVV), who in Parliament (the toy one, that is) asked Mr Barosso directly to make his accounts public. And for this Daniël Stoep, the PVV MEP spokesperson, was called a 'FASCIST!' (NL) by EUnion parliament leader of the socialist fraction Martin Schulz (p).

In a tiring display of feeble back-pedalling (NL audio) Schulz later denied having used the F-word, only to later state he was actually talking about a UKIP MEP (Nigel Farage?). Video (with EN subtitling by Vlad) is below, so judge for yourself just how forthright Mr Schulz is...

[UPDATE001] Gates of Vienna have the entire story here.

Barroso: 700,000 in expenses is a modest amount

Time to fly off into a good, old-fashioned towering rage again. The Dutch broadcaster RTL News television filed a request for information on expenses by MEPs and members of the European Commission and published them on its website (NL). The Montesquieu Institute gives us the informtation in EN: President of the European Commission, Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso has claimed more than € 700,000 in expenses in 2009.

Europe's taxpayers were charged almost €4 million last year for travel expenses, official dinners and diplomatic gifts related to the European Commission. The commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, accounted for over €700,000 of the bill.

The bulk of the expenditure (some €3.5 million) represents travel costs, while the remaining €355,338 were paid out in so-called representation costs - dinners and gifts given to other officials. (...)

Mr Barroso's 66 travel engagements last year amounted to a total of €697,773. The 10 trips outside the EU, such as the G20 summit in Pittsburgh or the EU-Russia summit in Khabarovsk, had an average cost of €21,898 each, while his intra-EU travels cost roughly three times less per outing.

"Mr Barroso travels a lot and the European Commission doesn't have an official plane, unlike governments," a spokesperson for the commission told this website.

In a reaction Mr Barroso was unapologetic and even dismissive (NL):

If you look at what government leaders claim in expenses, these amounts are very modest

Almost three-quarters of a million (on top of a 350k yearly salary), that is only 'modest'. Never mind that it is tax money, OUR money he is spending bucket by bucket with reckless abandon. Can we leave now?

Document drop:
EU Commissioner Entitlements (pdf)
EU Code of Conduct for Commissioners (pdf)

Dutch MSM: Bought and paid for

This cannot be good. Elsevier (NL) reports that the government is going to pay the salaries of 60 journalists and editors working for Dutch dead-tree media.

Among those receiving the 'free' journalists are the Persgroep (Trouw, Volkskrant, Parool and Algemeen Dagblad), who will get 14 subsidized spots, and de Telegraaf, good for nine state-dependent journalists. Opinion mags HP/De Tijd, Vrij Nederland and Weekblad de Groene each get one subsidized editor spot. All in all this new subsidy scheme runs the entire spectrum of big printed MSM. Notable exceptions are Elsevier magazine and the daily NRC.

The plan was concocted by (now ex-) minister Plasterk (PvdA), who wanted to help out the ailing printed press sector in these hard times of financial crisis and competition from the internet. What is left unsaid, of course, is that much of the dead-tree MSM (as is the MSM in general) are all preaching from the same sermon book, singing the praises of multiculturalism and admonishing their readers for not being worried enough about AGW. This has greatly contributed to a dwindling readership, as citizens turn more and more to the internet for truly independent news.

And so, in a bid to salvage what is left, our national printed MSM is being nationalised by stealth. Because let's be honest: it would be naive to think that the money comes with no strings attached. None of those subsidized journos is going to write anything that may jeopardize their taxpayer funded job, are they?

One has to wonder, though, if getting more of the same, tax-funded or not, is going to do anything for a sector that apparently is unable to earn its own keep. Elsevier doesn't think so. Noting that they have resisted this ridiculous plan from the start they go on to note:

This weekly will under no circumstances become state media, and does not want in any way justify suspicions that the editorial staff is treating government and public authorities with velvet gloves [Dutch for kid gloves - KV]. Besides: Elsevier honours the principle that healthy companies should be able to earn their own keep. Plus: This subsidy leads to distorion of competition.

So... Let's hear it for Elsevier (and NRC). But also let us not forget that as of today our printed media has lost its independence (such as it was) and have now become de facto propaganda outlets of our government. That cannot be good at all

Climate humor

(h/t Climate Change Fraud)

Balanced over here, unhinged over there

Over on Your Freedom and Ours a thoughtful piece on the March 5 presentation of Fitna and subsequent press conference by Geert Wilders, Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Baroness Cox.

Particularly interesting (to foreign readers, but perhaps also to Dutch readers) is the section on Wilders' intended policies, of which we hear far too little, as Helen notes as well:

What are Mr Wilders’s policies? It’s worth asking that question since you will never find out the answer from the main-stream media whose denizens consider the state of Mr Wilders’s hair far more important.

All in all, of you want a short concise introduction to the political views of Geert Wilders, or a proper report on the press conference, head on over.

Elsewhere, some prominent US conservatives have decided that Europe's re-emerging self-esteem is somehow a prelude to a Europe-wide take-over by fascists. Glenn Beck is the most notable. But, as GoV points out, Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol have also joined this mad dash into little green insanity.

Or is there something more sinister going on? Several commenters made the observation that Fox is owned, in part, by Prince bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. This may have something to do with Fox actively fighting (and mis-labelling) criticism of islam and muslims. As remembered by Walid Shoebat:

He himself (Prince bin Talal) said, ‘I just had to make a phone call to [tell them to] stop using the word Muslim’ regarding the rioting in France,” Mr. Shoebad notes. “Bill O’Reilly says to Ibrahim Hooper, the head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), that he is an upstanding citizen. Since when was the head of CAIR an upstanding citizen?

Beck's interview with Geert Wilders has been taken down. But what were these Mr. Beck? Just empty words? Or are you selling out your friends and comrades in arms for a few measly pieces of silver? What are you, Mr. Beck?

[UPDATE001] Mark Steyn has his take on the situation here.

Wilders does not need to be lectured condescendingly about distinctions within Islam, because he lives with them every day.

Ouch! So true, but... Ouch!

Getting slightly boring

Over on WUWT yet another IPCC AR4 gaffe that leaves one with a confirmation of the total and utter unscientific character of the whole IPCC process.

Over the period of 1978 to 2005 the trend in Antarctic ice cover was positive, i.e. the ice mass has been growing consistently over a period of almost thirty year. The trend was 0.7 ± 0.2% per decade. This means that the the ice mass gained 0,7 percent per 10 years, with a margin of error of 0.2%. I.e. the statistically lowest end of the estimated was 0.5%, which is larger then 0, which makes the estimate significant (-ly different from zero).

Yet the IPCC AR4 report has it that

The Antarctic results show a slight but insignificant positive trend of 0.7 ± 0.2% per decade.

(emphasis mine - KV).

Comments by reviewers, all of then honest-to-God scientists, pointing out the error in the statement (calling something insignificant when the estimate is more then tree times as large as the margin of error) were (purposefully?) ignored, even as their comments have been labelled “Taken into account in revised text”.

Can we fire the entire IPCC cabal already?

Who owns the science?

On EURef a post asking an important questions: Who owns the science?

Detailing the emergence of yet another tranzi organisation, it admits to only scratching the surface in asserting that EUnion spending on 'desirable' climate change research is running into tens of millions of euros.

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to the Global Research Alliance, the EU is heavily involved and plans to support it with secretarial assistance. It is seen as an opportunity to coordinate funds and activities, the EU priding itself on "its long experience in bringing together national research programmes to tackle shared problems."

So, yet another transnational body is in the making, detaching still further the research effort from its national base, blurring the lines of responsibility and destroying the last vestiges of accountability. And there lies the greatest of all dangers. Too often, we hear ministers tell us that they must be "guided by the science". But, we have to ask, who owns this science – and who is it working for? It is no longer ours, and it does not work for us.

Yet another reason to fight for the reinstatement of the nation state as the guiding unit of (geo-) political endeavors.

Wilders linkage

Yesterday (Friday, March 5) Wilders once again graced the British Isles with a visit. Wilders was there to visit Britain's House of Lords to screen his anti-Islamic film Fitna. The text of the speech to the House of Lords is on page II of KV (thanks to the PVV press office for sending it).

An overview of British MSM reporting is here. Photo's of the EDL demo in support of Wilders can be found here. An excerpt of the press conference is given in the video above. The BBC even had the audacity to show a fragment of 'Fitna'.

A Gates of Vienna reader on his way to the EDL demo, had a brief encounter with Geert Wilders.The EDL demo was largely peaceful. Some yobs were trying to stir up trouble. Funnily enough, it wasn't Wilders supporters trying to do so. As to the character of the EDL demo in support of Geert Wilders: That is probably best summed up by GoV reader Harry:

I marched today with my indian friend, next to a muslim apostate and a young girl with an Israeli flag. At the end I was thanked by a nice lady old enough to be my grandmother, sometimes I love this country, great day.

Which perfectly illustrates that doubts about islam settling in Europe is shared by many more then is usually acknowledged in the MSM.

Short hiatus

I'm away for a couple of days on business. Back in the weekend.