Monthly Archives: August 2012

Iran’s anti-Semitism makes it the greatest threat to Jews

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The Holocaust was the most evil event of the 20th century. So it is abhorrent to me that a government in today’s world would advocate a repeat of that horror. And it is almost beyond belief that the rest of the world would hear such an outrage and look the other way.

I am referring, of course, to the leaders of today’s Iran and the global ho-hum response to the most virulent form of state-sponsored anti-Semitism since Nazi Germany.…

Iran is more than a threat to a piece of geography called Israel. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the greatest threat to Jews to emerge in the past 70 years.…

The Iranian government is as anti-Semitic as the Third Reich.

Listen to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and you hear strains of Adolf Hitler. Read, for example, this from Ahmadinejad’s recent address in Tehran to ambassadors of Islamic countries:

“It has now been some 400 years that a horrendous Zionist clan has been ruling the major world affairs. And behind the scenes of the major power circles, in political, media, monetary, and banking organizations in the world, they have been the decision-makers, to an extent that a big power with a huge economy and over 300 million population, the presidential election hopefuls must go kiss the feet of the Zionists to ensure their victory in the elections.”

And this: “The Zionist regime is both the symbol of the hegemony of the Zionism over the world and the means in the hand of the oppressor powers for expansion of their hegemony in the region and in the world.”

Ahmadinejad’s call for the annihilation of Israel echoes the Fuehrer’s call for Jewish extermination: “Any freedom lover and justice-seeker in the world must do its best for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the path for the establishment of justice and freedom in the world.”

Ahmadinejad was playing catch-up to his vice president, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, who this year set the standard for hatred of Jews. Speaking at a U.N.-sponsored conference on the illegal drug trade in June, Rahimi said, according to the New York Times, the Talmud teaches to “destroy everyone who opposes the Jews.”

“Zionists,” he said, are in firm control of the drug trade. Rahimi reportedly told stories of gynecologists killing black babies on the order of Zionists, and he claimed that the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was started by Jews.

The international focus today is on Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons and the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Tehran to Israel. That is too narrow a view.

It ignores the wider threat of Iranian-sponsored anti-Semitism to Jews everywhere. Iran’s bigotry has a global dimension. And that poses a moral challenge to the rest of the world.

We did not stop the greatest atrocity of the 20th century. What of the next?

President Obama has said that he “will always be there for Israel,” and Mitt Romney said much the same. What about the rest of the world?

Iran violates national sovereignty in order to kill Jews.

The fingerprints of Iran were found in attacks on Jews in Bulgaria, India, Thailand and Georgia. Contending that Iran’s threat is mainly to Israel is to ignore reality, unpleasant and challenging though it may be.

If we are to honor the pledge of “never again,” will we be up to preventing the potential genocide of the 21st century?

Source: Washington Post: 6th August 2012

Ahmadinejad: Antizionism = Antisemitism

If proof was needed, here it is. Ahmadinejad is a paranoid and dangerous antisemite:

Ahmadinejad:
Qods Day to liberate Palestine,
solve entire world problems

Tehran, Aug 2, 2012 IRNA – IRI president said here Wednesday world status, particularly that of Islamic countries like Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Turkey, and many other regional countries prove that entire humans are captives, and oppressed under hegemony of global oppression.

According to IRNA Wednesday night news team, the information website of the Presidential Office further quoted the IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad late Wednesday night as making the comment Wednesday night in a meeting with ambassadors and embassy staffs of Islamic countries in Tehran.

President Ahmadinejad began his address with congratulating his Muslim guests on the blessed occasion of the beginning of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan to them, the world Muslims, and the entire human community, considering Ramadan as a special divine blessing for the entire mankind, and a special and unique opportunity for them.

Focusing on the question: What’s to be done to solve the human society’s problems and totally uproot them? He reiterated, “It is quite obvious that the present day conditions of the world are quite messy and the management system in effect has faced defeat in providing the human beings’ basic needs, so that each year over 1,200 billion US dollars are spent for manufacturing weapons, most of which are exported; if these weapons were merely stockpiled, the weapon warehouses would have been fully packed within a single year, but using the weapons means committing crimes, occupation, massacre of people, and oppression.”

The president emphasized that the existence of a just system is a dire necessity and the management of the world power circles must be in the hands of just, qualified, pure from all vices, and popular human beings.

Ahmadinejad added, “It has now been some 400 years that a horrendous Zionist clan has been ruling the major world affairs, and behind the scenes of the major power circles, in political, media, monetary, and banking organizations in the world, they have been the decision makers, to an extent that a big power with a huge economy and over 300 million population, the presidential election hopefuls must go kiss the feet of the Zionists to ensure their victory in the elections.”

He said, “If the people’s votes really counts in those countries, why then a candidate must go to kiss the feet of a clandestine Zionist minority, sacrificing the entire prestige, chanted mottoes, and values of their system before the Zionists, and justifying the entire criminal acts of that regime?”

Ahmadinejad said that Israel is the symbol of the globally ruling Zionism in the world, reiterating, “Among the western governments and politicians there are great differences of tastes and the political competitions are tough, but is supporting the Zionist regime, they are all united.”

The president pointed out that in order to evolutionize the status of the world decision making is needed, the forces must get united, and their ultimate objective must be the annihilation of the Zionist regime, emphasizing, “The Zionist regime is both the symbol of the hegemony of the Zionism over the world and the means in the hand of the oppressor powers for expansion of their hegemony in the region and in the world.”

Ahmadinejad pointed out that it is the right of the entire nations, without any discrimination, to be benefitted from justice, respect and freedom, and to be dear and prestigious, reiterating, “When such an event would occur in the Middle East, the situation would be overturned, and today we are witnesses to the presence of the enemies of mankind altogether to channel the righteous demands of the nations in a way to ensure that the Zionist regime would be saved!”

The IRI president emphasized, “NATO has no where and in no country been the harbinger of justice and peace in the world.”

He referred to the late Imam Khomeini’s initiative of naming the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan as the International Qods Day, arguing, “The Qods Day is not merely a strategic solution for the Palestinian problem, as it is to be viewed as a key for solving the world problems; any freedom lover and justice seeker in the world must do its best for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the path for the establishment of justice and freedom in the world.”

The president referred to the protests and uprisings of the immigrants in the occupied lands, reiterating, “The Zionist that has resorting to lies and phony promises attracted a group into their lands fro around the world in order to expand their hegemony over the regional nations taking advantage of their presence are now mistreating them.”

Ahmadinejad added, “Zionism is the modern times plight of the human society and when we meet the European politicians they say speak transparently about everything, but they refrain from talking about the Zionist regime, which proves that Israel is the axis of unity of the world hegemonic powers.”

He referred to the approaching International Qods Day, pointing out that today from North Africa to the Middle East great developments are taking place, reiterating, “It is expected that this year the Qods Friday in entire countries, particularly in those where these developments have taken place, such as Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Sudan, would be held more glorious, at broader scale, and more spectacular than ever before.”

The president said, “In order to block the path for the growth and blossoming of the independent and justice s
eeking nations in the world, the enemies are unfortunately busy making moves aimed at creating sectarian, and tribal, and religious gaps among the Muslims, and this is while the Muslim nations are not only not the enemies and opponents of one another, but also the friends of the Christians and the followers of other religions.”

He added, “It is the self declared leaders and hegemonic powers that are at odds with each other and the enemies of one another, and are now trying to transfer that enmity and antagonist feeling to the other parts of the world, while the Muslim nations all move in the same direction towards worshiping God, and the apparent disputes among them are imposed by the Zionists.”

Ahmadinejad then focused on the blessings of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the end of his address expressed hope that in this Ramadan Almighty Allah would decide the most beautiful and best fate for the human society and for the world Muslims.

Before the president’s address, Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Akbar Salehi welcomed the guests and the Palestinian Ambassador Salah Zawawi as the eldest minister gave an address on the occasion.

http://www.irna.ir/News/Politic/Ahmadinejad,-Qods-Day-to-liberate-Palestine,-solve-entire-world-problems/80257558; retrieved 9 Aug 2012

The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic

By RICHARD A. MULLER

Published: July 28, 2012, Berkeley, Cal.

CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.

These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming. In its 2007 report, the I.P.C.C. concluded only that most of the warming of the prior 50 years could be attributed to humans. It was possible, according to the I.P.C.C. consensus statement, that the warming before 1956 could be because of changes in solar activity, and that even a substantial part of the more recent warming could be natural.

Our Berkeley Earth approach used sophisticated statistical methods developed largely by our lead scientist, Robert Rohde, which allowed us to determine earth land temperature much further back in time. We carefully studied issues raised by skeptics: biases from urban heating (we duplicated our results using rural data alone), from data selection (prior groups selected fewer than 20 percent of the available temperature stations; we used virtually 100 percent), from poor station quality (we separately analyzed good stations and poor ones) and from human intervention and data adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off). In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions.

The historic temperature pattern we observed has abrupt dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic eruptions; the particulates from such events reflect sunlight, make for beautiful sunsets and cool the earth’s surface for a few years. There are small, rapid variations attributable to El Niño and other ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream; because of such oscillations, the “flattening” of the recent temperature rise that some people claim is not, in our view, statistically significant. What has caused the gradual but systematic rise of two and a half degrees? We tried fitting the shape to simple math functions (exponentials, polynomials), to solar activity and even to rising functions like world population. By far the best match was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured from atmospheric samples and air trapped in polar ice.

Just as important, our record is long enough that we could search for the fingerprint of solar variability, based on the historical record of sunspots. That fingerprint is absent. Although the I.P.C.C. allowed for the possibility that variations in sunlight could have ended the “Little Ice Age,” a period of cooling from the 14th century to about 1850, our data argues strongly that the temperature rise of the past 250 years cannot be attributed to solar changes. This conclusion is, in retrospect, not too surprising; we’ve learned from satellite measurements that solar activity changes the brightness of the sun very little.

How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does. Adding methane, a second greenhouse gas, to our analysis doesn’t change the results. Moreover, our analysis does not depend on large, complex global climate models, the huge computer programs that are notorious for their hidden assumptions and adjustable parameters. Our result is based simply on the close agreement between the shape of the observed temperature rise and the known greenhouse gas increase.

It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical. I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed.

Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by 2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous.

The careful analysis by our team is laid out in five scientific papers now online atBerkeleyEarth.org. That site also shows our chart of temperature from 1753 to the present, with its clear fingerprint of volcanoes and carbon dioxide, but containing no component that matches solar activity. Four of our papers have undergone extensive scrutiny by the scientific community, and the newest, a paper with the analysis of the human component, is now posted, along with the data and computer programs used. Such transparency is the heart of the scientific method; if you find our conclusions implausible, tell us of any errors of data or analysis.

What about the future? As carbon dioxide emissions increase, the temperature should continue to rise. I expect the rate of warming to proceed at a steady pace, about one and a half degrees over land in the next 50 years, less if the oceans are included. But if China continues its rapid economic growth (it has averaged 10 percent per year over the last 20 years) and its vast use of coal (it typically adds one new gigawatt per month), then that same warming could take place in less than 20 years.

Science is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes. Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and should be done.

Richard A. Muller, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former MacArthur Foundation fellow, is the author, most recently, of “Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines.”

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on July 30, 2012, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic.




Karl Frank Jr.
In awe of the universe and addicted to life.

Among Scientists, the Debate is Over, Man-Made Climate Change is Real – and Bad

Posted on August 5, 2012 


Most who follow politics closely know who the Koch Brothers are. Only those who are interested in science know about Richard Muller. But, just in case, the Koch Brothers inherited their father’s oil refinery business. They are one of, if not the largest, contributors to conservative and libertarian politicians and their Super-PACs. As you might have guessed just by inference, they are climate-change deniers.

Richard Muller is a Professor of Physics at the University of California – Berkeley and has
been one of the most outspoken critics, or skeptics of “climate change due to man-made global warming.” He is also author of the popular science book, Physics for Future Presidents.

As you might imagine, the Koch Brothers found Richard Muller to be the best pick to research the science behind climate change.  So, Muller and a dozen other scientists got to work.  They tested and accounted for every seemingly credible counter-argument to man-made climate change.  What they found is what the vast majority of climatologists have known for decades.  If we don’t do something now, eventually Earth will be uninhabitable for humanity.

I wish I was a fly on the wall when the Koch Brothers got those results back, especially considering it was a study they had funded.

While the results of this study were released almost a year ago, and those of us who follow such science closely heard the results at the time, most of the populace had not yet heard what Muller had to say.  That may be what prompted him to write an Op-Ed in the New York Times on July 28th, 2012.  It starts like this:

“CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”

Source: Mehlville-Oakville