…”it had to have been the worst US-Japan Summit Meeting in history”

The article was translated here:

Indications that it would be chaotic were picked up in advance, even before President Obama arrived in Japan. “Even within the Japanese government there was and is still no agreement among the Japanese Cabinet Ministers on what to do about the Futenma USMC station in Okinawa situation (moving it to an offshore location or elsewhere), and for that reason the decision was being put in a holding pattern because of it, the US peppered their disbelief at Japan, stating “we don’t know just who is saying what and if it is true on your side, the decision is taking too long.” And that is when the U.S. side sent their anger to Japan in message form by their highly unusual, sudden, last-minute change in the schedule of Obama to come to Japan, a US journalist source revealed.

–The plan was for Obama to arrive in Japan on the November 12, have his summit meeting with Hatoyama on the 13th, and thereby jet out of Japan the following day, the 14th to Singapore for the APEC Summit meeting. The US journalist also revealed that the Obama administration made the sudden request to change this schedule for Obama to the 13th (arrival in Japan), on November 7. Said the same US journalist source, “their excuse for the delay was the shooting at Ft. Hood, Texas on the US Army base on November 5. But the fact of the matter is, the memoral service was on the November 10 and only took a day trip for Obama whereupon he returned immediately to Washington. After that, he had the National Security Council meeting on policy in Afghanistan on November 11th. However, he could have departed Washington D.C. right after that and could have still landed in Japan as everyone agreed and planned on, for the 12th.”

–Additional screw-ups that created a possible conflict with the Emperor’s schedule and the entire Cabinet celebrating his 20 years on the throne, can be traced to the Japanese Foreign Ministry. A ruling Democratic Party of Japan spokesperson said “at any rate, with four days in China for Obama, the fact is China is the big thing for them.”

–Obama was made to wait five minutes in a car at the entrance way to the Prime Minister’s Official Residence, which as seen as not only a diplomatic discourtesy, but a breach of security procedures, and furthermore it would be recalled the Prime Minister and his wife had kept Obama waiting for a long time in Pittsburg at the G-20 dinner as well, says foreign affairs specialist Oyama.

–It may have been felt as a diplomatic slight to get back at the Americans because of the very sudden, troublesome last minute schedule change.

–A DPJ ruling party official stated to Shukan Bunshun, that “in the Obama-Hatoyama summit itself, the Japanese side had a total of 14 officials, including six cabinet ministers, the Foreign Minister Okada, the Defense Minister Kitazawa, etc. but on the American side it was only “Team Obama” staff and hardly anybody else. There was agreement in advance that there would be no detailed discussion on any topics, and there was not even a dynamic give-and-take discussion in the meeting. It was to the point that even on the American side, there were those in the Obama delegation who were yawning and even some who were nodding off right there in the meeting.“

–Prime Minister Hatoyama essentially left Obama on Japanese soil while he went ahead of Obama to the Singapore summit of APEC, leaving on the November 14 even while Obama still had major events in Japan such as delivering a major live speech and visiting the Imperial Palace, so this to was seen perhaps as a message leaving ahead of him like that as a country’s host, observed a reporter attached to the Prime Minister’s beat. The reason to go to Singapore like that was to tape-cut the grand opening of a Japan information center, but in order to do that, cutting time to be spent with the President of the US on Japanese soil is rather unprecedented, journalist Michael Yu observed.

–Before the US-Japan summit, the leader of the Socialist Party of Japan Ms. Fukushima, threatened that if the US Marines would move their base up to (the) Henoko offshore reef from the current Futenma location, then she would leave the Hatoyama coalition government. Well it seems Prime Minister Hatoyama is more afraid of Socialist Party leader Fukushima than he is President Obama of the USA, that is why he reversed himself on the committment about settling Futenma USMC Station issue so soon after meeting Obama.

–A source in the US government stated “US-Japan relations are having a problem, but it is not a crisis.” –However, it does seem a crisis is approaching as we speak.

And lets not forget the bow:

Before we get to his other multiple fluffs and diplomatic errors, let’s explain what Obama was telling the Japanese people with his absurdly low bow. The sort of bow that Obama made is almost that of a “dogeza” bow. This is a sort of bow that is so low as to be considered a prostrated position. It is seen as an apology, a supplication, not a sign of respect.

Saturday Night Live’s opening skit was a mock press conference between China’s Hu Jintao and President Obama. It perfectly highlighted the failure of Obama’s Asia trip to strengthen U.S. overseas relations.

But just as it was with Obama’s bow to the Japanese Emperor, these scenes are not all jokes and giggles. The issues behind the humor are very serious with potentially dramatic negative consequences for the United States and the maintenance of world peace.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume summed the problem up well:

“America is not what is wrong with the world….This policy of almost determined weakness on the part of Obama…hasn’t produced any results and I predict it will not produce any.” -Brit Hume

And for our Fox News hating friends on the left, a similar perspective from Europe comes via the German news magazine Der Spiegel (hardly part of the vast right wing conspiracy):

Obama’s Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage
By Gabor Steingart
Der Spiegel
11/23/2009

When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it’s not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.

There were only a few hours left before Air Force One was scheduled to depart for the flight home. US President Barack Obama trip through Asia had already seen him travel 24,000 kilometers, sit through a dozen state banquets, climb the Great Wall of China and shake hands with Korean children. It was high time to take stock of the trip.

Barack Obama looked tired on Thursday, as he stood in the Blue House in Seoul, the official residence of the South Korean president. He also seemed irritable and even slightly forlorn. The CNN cameras had already been set up. But then Obama decided not to play along, and not to answer the question he had already been asked several times on his trip: what did he plan to take home with him? Instead, he simply said “thank you, guys,” and disappeared. David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president, fielded the journalists’ questions in the hallway of the Blue House instead, telling them that the public’s expectations had been “too high.”

The mood in Obama’s foreign policy team is tense following an extended Asia trip that produced no palpable results. The “first Pacific president,” as Obama called himself, came as a friend and returned as a stranger. The Asians smiled but made no concessions.

Lost Some Stature

Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama’s currency isn’t as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington’s new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.

Obama promised that if he was elected the world would look back and say “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” NOW he tells us our expectations had been too high?

Steingart went on to compare Obama’s China trip to that of Bill Clinton where the red carpet was clearly more plush for Clinton than Obama. And the most bitter sting of all came at the end of the article suggesting as Newt Gingrich did that Obama is ‘a lot like Jimmy Carter.’ Ouch!

Der Spiegel also ran op-eds declaring:

• Obama Has Failed the World on Climate Change
• ‘Obama’s Soft Approach on China Won’t Succeed’

…the scientific basis for global warming projections is now under scrutiny as never before. The principal source of these projections is produced by a small group of scientists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), affiliated to the University of East Anglia.

Last week an apparent hacker obtained access to their computers and published in the blogosphere part of their internal e-mail traffic. And the CRU has conceded that the at least some of the published e-mails are genuine.

Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals.

There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But what is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British Government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished.

Instead of debate those pimping the AGW version of warming have done their best to close the debate, with the help of our liberal MSM.

It’s little more than a year now since Obama was elected. Plenty of time for the not so well informed public to forget the principles Obama campaigned on and the promises he made. Even as he repeated his “eight principles” in his budget message in February, he is set on a course that will violate nearly every one of them.

By now it should be painfully clear to all but the most diehard Obamaton that the current “reforms” violate every principle and promise Obama made to the American people regarding health care reform. The bills were negotiated in secret among Democrats. They won’t cover all uninsured Americans. Instead of lowering health care premiums the costs will increase. The bills are not “deficit neutral” but are actually the worst form of budget busters filled with the sort of gimmicks and secret deals Obama campaigned against. Millions of Americans will be forced onto the government plan and fined or get jail time if they do not enroll. And despite every promise Obama made during the campaing, taxes on those earning less than $250,000 will go up.

Finally, this message has begun to seep into the consciousness of the greater, often ambivalent, American public:

A budget-buster in the making
By David S. Broder
Washington Post
Sunday, November 22, 2009

It’s simply not true that America is ambivalent about everything when it comes to the Obama health plan.

The day after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) gave its qualified blessing to the version of health reform produced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Quinnipiac University poll of a national cross section of voters reported its latest results.

This poll may not be as famous as some others, but I know the care and professionalism of the people who run it, and one question was particularly interesting to me.

It read: “President Obama has pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our federal budget deficit over the next decade. Do you think that President Obama will be able to keep his promise or do you think that any health care plan that Congress passes and President Obama signs will add to the federal budget deficit?”

The answer: Less than one-fifth of the voters — 19 percent of the sample — think he will keep his word. Nine of 10 Republicans and eight of 10 independents said that whatever passes will add to the torrent of red ink. By a margin of four to three, even Democrats agreed this is likely.

That fear contributed directly to the fact that, by a 16-point margin, the majority in this poll said they oppose the legislation moving through Congress.
…
While the CBO said that both the House-passed bill and the one Reid has drafted meet Obama’s test by being budget-neutral, every expert I have talked to says that the public has it right. These bills, as they stand, are budget-busters.

[F]ormer CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin amplif[ies] the point with specific examples and biting language. Holtz-Eakin cites a long list of Democratic-sponsored “budget gimmicks” that made it possible for the CBO to estimate that Reid’s bill would reduce federal deficits by $130 billion by 2019.

Perhaps the biggest of those maneuvers was Reid’s decision to postpone the start of subsidies to help the uninsured buy policies from mid-2013 to January 2014 — long after taxes and fees levied by the bill would have begun.

Even with that change, there is plenty in the CBO report to suggest that the promised budget savings may not materialize. If you read deep enough, you will find that under the Senate bill, “federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period” — not decline. The gross increase would be almost $1 trillion — $848 billion, to be exact, mainly to subsidize the uninsured. The net increase would be $160 billion.

But this depends on two big gambles. Will future Congresses actually impose the assumed $420 billion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health programs? They never have.

And will this Congress enact the excise tax on high-premium insurance policies (the so-called Cadillac plans) in Reid’s bill? Obama has never endorsed them, and House Democrats — reacting to union pressure — turned them down in favor of a surtax on millionaires’ income.

The challenge to Congress — and to Obama — remains the same: Make the promised savings real, and don’t pass along unfunded programs to our children and grandchildren.

Broder makes an excellent point. Has Congress ever followed through with difficult cuts to control costs? Or should we expect the same huge cost overruns from Obama Care that we got from Medicare and most other federal programs? (see chart at right)

Reforms Make Health Care WORSE, Not Better!

Underneath all the talk of “reform” the bills in both the House and Senate devote thousands of pages to creating new federal agencies and layers of bureaucracy that have little to do with improving Americans health care system and everything to do with political power and controlling the lives of Americans.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Flier, Dean of Harvard Medical School describes the consequences of the current Democrat legislation:

In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care’s dysfunctional delivery system. The system we have now promotes fragmented care and makes it more difficult than it should be to assess outcomes and patient satisfaction. The true costs of health care are disguised, competition based on price and quality are almost impossible, and patients lose their ability to be the ultimate judges of value.

Worse, currently proposed federal legislation would undermine any potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care. It would do so by overregulating the health-care system in the service of special interests such as insurance companies, hospitals, professional organizations and pharmaceutical companies, rather than the patients who should be our primary concern.

In effect, while the legislation would enhance access to insurance, the trade-off would be an accelerated crisis of health-care costs and perpetuation of the current dysfunctional system—now with many more participants. This will make an eventual solution even more difficult. Ultimately, our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all.

In short, the current bills before Congress are bad medicine for the American people and even worse fiscal policy. The Senate can put a stop to this nightmare before it’s too late if they vote to block the senate bill from a vote!

We are given 3 basic reasons for this: (1) to show off our justice system to the world; (2) to bring these evil men to justice (although, I doubt that the Obama administration would ever use the word evil); and (3) to try these men in the shadow of the fallen towers, bringing them back to the scene of the crime.

Reasons 2 and 3 are hokey. A military trial would bring these men to justice more quickly and surely that would an open criminal trial. And, does anyone in their right mind think that these terrorists will see the faces in the courtroom, and know that they are down the street from the scene of the crime, and that this will somehow make them feel badly? How preposterous. This will be a victory for terrorists all over the world, regardless of the outcome.

The first reason is what Holder actually believes, but in a far different way than we think of it. First of all, this trial cannot match up with a normal, criminal trial for several reasons: (1) the defendants were not mirandized; (2) Evidence was not collected and preserved according to legal standards; and (3) criminals in this country have a right to a speedy trial. (4) Defendants are promised a jury of their unbiased peers. (5) Quite obviously, confessions cannot be obtained through torture, and the President of the United States has proclaimed waterboarding to be torture. (6) Eric Holder’s own law firm has defended terrorists, so that suggests a lack of objectivity as well.

In other words, in order to try this case, certain common aspects of our criminal justice system must be thrown out the window. How this is done legally perplexes me, but then, as Lindsay Graham pointed out painfully to Holder that this approach to terrorists is unprecedented. We have never once before taken an enemy of the United States man from a foreign country and given him a common criminal trial, affording him all of the rights of an American citizen. We have, on some occasions, done this for terrorists arrested on American soil.

Our own president has (1) said that these men were subject to torture and (2) both he and his attorney general have pronounced these men guilty.

So what is Holder’s real motivation?

I need to first paint a picture of the Obama administration to explain. This is an administration of amateur ideologues who are always in campaign mode. The one thing which they have done well is, they got Obama elected. We also know that these are ideologues, given people who have been in the administration. One who views Mao as a man she admires; another who is both an avowed Communist and a 9-11 truther, another who wants to solve global warming by painting everyone’s h roof white, etc. So, this is not an administration of moderates.

Since New York Governor Paterson first heard about this 6 months ago, that means this was an executive decision that came frpm higher up than Holder. However, since this administration is in campaign mode, they use a member of the cabinet as their attack dog, who does the dirty work. The president does not do any of the dirty work. So, this has to appear as if Holder woke up this morning, said to his wife, “I think I am going to try KSM in a New York criminal trial setting,” and she said, “That’s nice dear.” In other words, they do not want Obama fingerprints on this action (which may account for why they waited for some time to pass since the decision was made and timed the decision for when the president was outside of the country).

Ideologues hate the CIA. From the very beginning, Obama has done everything possible to neuter the CIA. All of their methods and all of their concern not to go too far was brought out in the public. This is an administration which will not even reveal the details of their contract for the website Recovery.gov…; so transparency is not what they are going for. Neutering the CIA is what they wanted. The CIA is no longer dealing with terrorists who have been picked up, and all of their methods are made public, so terrorists can train to resist these methods if they are ever brought back.

This trial is not about the CIA, however; as they have already destroyed their effectiveness. This trial is all about the Bush administration. Here is where we can recognize that Holder (and Obama) want to hold up our legal system to the world to admire. They want to use this trial to pivot to the Bush administration and the tactics used to gain information (which Obama has proclaimed to be torture), and in a very big, and very public trial, the Obama administration will be forced to indict the Bush administration. It is going to look as though this is the natural outgrowth of a criminal trial. And Obama wants the world to see that, we are willing to indict members of government for such evils as torture and improper treatment of prisoners. Just like any 3rd world dictator does.

That is the end game and the purpose of all of this.

The secondary purpose is, this is going to grab a lot of newspaper space and take over cable television news. This means, less time will be available to closely watch what the executive and legislative branches are doing. Behind this barrage, the Obama administration is going to be able to draft its most radical legislation (which I believe will be comprehensive immigrant legislation, which will fast-track many of them to being voters before 2012). Maybe that is a bit too paranoid. Whatever it is, the Obama administration will be able to more effectively put through various bills and riders and amendments without the same close scrutiny that they are receiving now (from FoxNews, anyway).

So, as in a campaign mode, this seems to all come out naturally, without Obama’s fingerprints on it; they get to go after the real criminals of the people—namely, the Bush administration (and, to a much lesser degree, the CIA); and they get to sneak through radical legislation because we are not looking at what the other hand is doing.

Just as many of us have been struck dumb by the action of this administration in such a short time, this will be absolutely amazing, and an incredible thrill to the far, far left.

I was trapping up the Cold Stream, a minor creek feeding into the Pine River, it was a small spur of a much larger government purchased trap line in the Peace River drainage. I had traps set on both banks for five miles from where I parked my 1981 F350, a truck I still own.

The creek had steep banks about twenty feet high; but the water was rarely over a foot or two deep at the bottom; except where the beaver made their damns, there the water might be 6 to 10 feet deep above the damn and a mere trickle down stream.

The ranchers in the area were pestering me to thin out the beaver, because their habits can flood good grazing land and disrupt water flow; but the truth was, I wasn’t a very good beaver trapper. Although I knew lots of techniques, I always asked older trappers about trapping beaver and they volunteered information, but I was rarely successful with beaver. It was much easier for me to shoot them in the spring, but the fur is only worth 20% of under the ice winter beaver. I had an unnatural ability for wolves, coyotes, and lynx; the old trappers asked me about my techniques with these animals, but I didn’t have or do anything special. I figure it is either mystical or else some animals like your scent or they don‘t. Some trappers spend a lifetime trapping and never get a wolf or coyote and I could get 4 or 5 in a night: without the ritual preparation of traps and snares. Pine Marten are so easy that children trap them. Fisher is an art and wolverine is war, but that is another story.

In the far North country, extremes of weather are the norm. This particular year in the early-eighties, we had a monsoon of rain in the middle of December. For ranchers and trappers this was a low level disaster. Hay that is normally left outside in the winter was being soaked and destroyed, creeks were overflowing their banks and the water was not being absorbed so run off was destroying cultivated fields. The trappers couldn’t cross the flooding rivers so traps weren’t checked and many beaver sets were washed away with the flood.

The beaver doesn’t live in his damn, the damn provides a decent pool of water so that he can carry on with his semi-aquatic life style. His home will be a burrow in the bank or a castle of sticks and mud in the pond he has created. They are semi-communal animals that only cooperate up to a point. Normally, a mating pair will set up house keeping and have a litter of little beaver or kits. The beaver like many humans likes to think of himself as a Communist, however the forces of nature often test their Marxist creed to the limit; when a beaver home is destroyed in winter, it is imperative that he and his family move in with another family who posess better design and construction skills. That’s when the brotherhood of Communism begins to break down and the animals fight. These are not wrestling matches like the wrestling federation matches on TV, they fight for real and savage each other with their two enormous rodent incisors that are as big as your two index fingers placed side by side. Thus they end up with deep cuts and scars and I have to listen to the fur buyer explain how the international monetary system is going to fail because of beaver fighting, damn those Communists to Hell anyway.

Right after the winter monsoon stopped, the temperature dropped to forty below for two days and then warmed up to a comfortable twenty below. This caused all the water and mud to turn to ice with no snow, a dangerous situation for horses and cows. If their hind legs spread laterally they break their pelvis and a bullet is the kindest thing you can do or them.

I used my Husquvarna 480 chainsaw to cut a trail for the horses and cows. The trail was actually ice chips from running the saw along the ice, leaving a gravel-like path that would provide a foundation for manure that would soon freeze and left-over feed to accumulate eventually providing a safe area for the livestock. That’s a lot of saw work for two hundred cows and eight horses.

After taking care of my livestock, I headed out to the trap line to see what disasters had befallen out there. My closest run was the Coldstream. There was no snow, so a snowmobile was out of the question, I would check the line at a fast walk, these are the foot hills, but the country is still rough and steep. The creek had frozen at the top of its banks and since it flowed down from the high mountains, I could only imagine the raging torrent that boiled beneath the ice. Walking on river ice is risky business, if the ice breaks and the current carries you away, there is no reason to be overly concerned, because the bears will have you for dinner in the spring. Consequently, I try to stay off river ice as much as possible, especially if the river is over a few feet deep. The Coldstream looked to be about twenty foot deep because of the flood. Ice can give you nightmares if you know what can go wrong.

I decided to make this run with my rifle, a thirty inch ax on my belt and some traps, pliers, matches, a tarp, emergency rations, and snare wire all stowed in a back pack.

I would almost jog the whole distance, since I could rest at each set to freshen it up and hopefully retrieve fur. The catch was pretty good under the circumstances and my pack was getting heavier, nearly all my beaver sets were under the ice so they were probably in the Peace river by now. I reached the last set on the North side of the river and a big boar beaver was in a 330 Connibear across the river next to his burrow hole. I used the ax and fell a twelve inch diameter Poplar across the river and walked over to receive my bounty. There was one problem, he had fought hard before giving up the ghost and died on his back with the valuable guard hairs that command the highest prices, frozen into the mud. He was huge, if I just picked him up and ripped out the guard hairs he would lose over half his value.

With resignation I built a fire to help thaw his fat carcass out of its frozen trap, but at twenty below it was going to take all night to get melt the ice that held him. I decided to use my less than superior skills with an ax and chop through the frozen mud and take him home to my fur shack with a block of mud frozen to his back.

If a large man were to make a circle with his arms so that his fingers don’t quite touch, that would be the approximate size of this beaver that was frozen to the earth. I chopped and chopped sat down, boiled some tea had a biscuit and moose jerky, and chopped some more. I was beginning to wish I had never caught this beaver.

I was sweated up pretty well by the time I laced him unto my pack, doubling the weight I was now carrying as darkness settled around me. A few minutes after starting back to the truck, I heard an unearthly noise up on the hill above me.

A female mountain lion was in heat and she was agitated. Every hair on my body stood up. This was no joking matter. She sounded like she was out of her mind with desire and was not getting the attention she craved; coincidentally, I was carrying the boar beaver with the castors that have been the main component of the perfumes that have driven men and women alike into lust and acts of perversion for hundreds of years. It never did much for me, but I wasn’t the main issue here. This big cat that is all hot and bothered is the issue, and she is fast coming down the mountain. I tried to hurry my pace while analyzing the situation. I couldn’t move fast in the dark and she was gaining on me, I was already tired from chopping the beaver out of the ice, the weight of the beaver was slowing me down, the moon and stars were hidden behind cloud cover and there was no snow to provide light and the big cat was getting closer. I thought of my best friend and hunting partner Knarley Manners, he caught a big male lion in a wolf snare by accident and had it on his living room wall. It didn’t look that much smaller than an African Lion.

It was so dark now, that the scope on my rifle made the weapon almost useless and now the cat was close enough to attack, if she was romantically inclined, it was for sure she would be mad when she found out I wasn’t the handsome cat she was seeking. She was close enough now that she could rush me and take me down without me being able to see her. I had no choice, I walked out on the ice to at least have a little bit of light from the ice. I stepped lightly and carefully walking at an angle trying to keep a watch downstream towards the truck and behind me for the big cat. I had three miles to go and figured that either me or the cat was going to die in the next few minutes. Then it dawned on me, throw the pack on the bank and head for the truck with just the rifle. I should have done it when I first heard the cat. I laid the rifle on the ice and went through the contortions to get the pack off, I have wide shoulders and pack aren’t really designed for people like me, thus it is hard to unload a pack. Needless to say, I was in a hurry.

Finally, I got the pack off and took a step toward the bank to toss the pack and CRACK! The ice broke and I felt myself falling, I closed my eyes and waited for the freezing water to envelop me and sweep me away to a cold watery death.

There was a lightening bolt of pain that shot through my brain as I landed on a boulder with my tail bone and heard it crack, I rolled to my right in pain and fell off the boulder and my ax head encased in its sheath caught in the graon my belt broke two ribs on the right side and knocked the air out of me. I was in pain but alert enough to grasp the situation.

The river had frozen in flood stage when the temperature dropped to forty below, then the water ran out and eft this unbelievable ceiling of ice marking the crest of the river.

I was beneath a river of ice, maybe a million tons of ice, ice that can break into huge slabs the size of a truck and as sharp as a razor with a mountain lion walking on it that might weigh 250 to 300 pounds. A lion that might jump down here with me laying in 4 inches of water with a broken tail bone, at least one broken rib and no weapon except for a very dull ax. I stood up and backed up against the North bank, if she came for me at least it wouldn’t be from behind and I’d have at least one good swing with the ax.

With my rifle on top of the ice I waited, realizing that the ice had no support beneath it and it was only a matter of time until the whole ceiling of ice came crashing down, crushing anything in its way.

The cat came up to the hole I had just fallen through with its half cry and half growl; I thought the ice might give way from her noise alone. In the mean time, I was breathing through clenched teeth as quietly as possible because of the pain. The moon came out and illuminated the cat’s silhouette through the ice, she smelled the rifle and sent it skidding across the ice with her paw. She walked over to my pack and turned it over, she gave it a good slap and sent it spinning down the ice, she leaped and chased it across the ice, while I held my breath and watched her flex the ice ceiling with each stride. When she caught up to the pack, she picked it up and walked out of my life, not even offering a thank you for the big beaver and several other fur bearers in the pack along with a biscuit and a little moose jerky, all that meat would provide her a very tasty winter meal.

Although the big cat was gone, my problems were far from over; if you can imagine being under a building that is about to collapse, that is what it felt like. Now, I had to plan my escape.

Chopping a hole near the bank might mean bring all the ice down on me and digging a cave in the bank might have the same effect. There was a solution, I just had to figure it out.

I sat there for a couple of hours before I heard footsteps in the gravel of the stream bed. Could there be someone else trapped under the ice? Not likely, there isn’t another human being for thirty miles. This guy was big or else the sound was being amplified by the natural amphitheater of the ice ceiling, he sounded like he must be twelve feet tall. I still had my back to the wall and the slow heavy footsteps continued to get closer and closer. It had to be the devil himself, nothing walked down here under the ice and nothing was that big, then I saw the eyes they were glowing red like two bright embers with the light from the moon. I gripped the ax with both hands, I was going to go down swinging, this demon or devil would know he had been in a fight, I was not going down easy. Still he came with the crunching noises louder and louder until he stopped in front of me and stood up.

It was another beaver, he looked at me as if to ask what was I doing under the ice and then combed the hair on his head and face backwards with the scent oils he carries on his belly, shrugged his shoulder and continued down stream, I laughed but my ribs hurt so much I had to quit. Right then, I knew how to get out; the beaver gave me the idea, he would just build a platform out of what ever was available and climb up through the hole and walk away.

I built my tower out of logs and large rocks until I could climb out on the ice, this time I crawled on all fours to dissipate my weight, I crawled over to my rifle and then off of that deadly trap of a river. The night sky was beautiful, my truck started right away and I drove home a much more humble man.

Just as I was evading the very real danger of a mountain lion acting in an unpredictable manner, President Obama is evading his responsibilities as a
War Time President. I was alone and if luck would have turned against me whether I acted in a cowardly manner or not would have been debated if someone had found my remains. Obama is in front of the world and considered to be acting in a cowardly and reprehensible manner. Evasion of responsibilities while our military is watching for the lion behind them is beyond cowardice; it is being irresponsible and flippant with other people’s lives.

Obama may feel safe under the ceiling of ice, but hiding from danger and responsibility while waiting for the roof to cave in is perhaps the most dangerous position of all not necessarily for the President but for America. There are no more places to hide, President Obama must live up to his oath of office, there is no Affirmative Action Free Pass with a military involved in two wars and a country’s economic well being at stake. This is not a pretend political science class in college, there is no room for a personal political agenda of Socialism. Young patriots have their very lives at stake, our citizenry is in danger of losing their economic wealth and President Obama dithers over his image in the public eye and takes international excursions that do nothing more than weaken America’s international presence and prestige with no discernable purpose other than giving President Obama time to dither and pose.

The world is waiting Mr. Obama, stand up and take responsibility for leadership or let someone with the courage of their convictions lead this country.

The anonymous tipster, whom many people initially assumed had “hacked” into the computers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (repeatedly called the “Hadley CRU,” by mistake), might in fact be a CRU insider who released the files for his own reasons.

The user, known only as “FOIA” (which now appears to be a reference to the British equivalent of the US Freedom of Information Act), left only one comment on The Air Vent to announce his release of his 61-MB ZIP archive. He has never been heard from since, nor has anyone stepped forward claiming to be that person since the story became widely known.

Persons knowledgeable in information security hold that this is not the behavior of a hacker. A hacker normally boasts of his act, even if he were hired or otherwise suborned to commit his act by someone else. These two reports provide illustrations of such behavior.

Other commenters have observed that the very form and organization of the archive, which expands to 168 MB of text files, word-processing documents, PDF files, raw data, and even program code, indicate that someone already having access to the system logged in through his usual channels, made the archive, and then logged out. The user’s choice of words indicate someone having a motive to disclose to the world certain activities and mindsets that the user found distasteful, at least.

This Examiner has been able to reconstruct a timeline of the story

Read the original article to see the timeline, it is quite damning evidence that this was no hacker, but an insider and it all boils down to:

Mr. Stephen McIntyre at Climate Audit has made no secret of his repeated attempts to demand, under Britain’s Freedom of Information Act, that Phil Jones and his team yield up the data that are the basis of their claims for anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and its effects. Preliminary analysis of the archived e-mails also indicates that Jones knew of McIntyre’s efforts and was taking steps to stall and thwart them, in violation of the law. Perhaps, then, someone at CRU decided to take the law into his own hands.

Doesn’t surprise me one bit that they would resort to violate the law….all in the name of “science”

The $100 Million Health Care Vote?
By Jonathon Karl
ABC News
November 19, 2009 3:03 PM

What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform?

Here’s a case study.

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

Here’s the incredibly complicated language:

SEC. 2006. SPECIAL ADJUSTMENT TO FMAP DETERMINATION FOR CERTAIN STATES RECOVERING FROM A MAJOR DISASTER.

Section 1905 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1396d), as amended by sections 2001(a)(3) and
2001(b)(2), is amended— (1) in subsection (b), in the first sentence, by striking ‘‘subsection (y)’’ and inserting ‘‘subsections (y) and (aa)’’; and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘‘(aa)(1) Notwithstanding subsection (b), beginning January 1, 2011, the Federal medical assistance percentage for a fiscal year for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State shall be equal to the following:
‘(A) In the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), increased by 50 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5.

‘‘(B) In the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection for the State, increased by 25 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection.

‘‘(2) In this subsection, the term ‘disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State’ means a State that is one of
the 50 States or the District of Columbia, for which, at any time during the preceding 7 fiscal years, the President has declared a major disaster under section 401 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and determined as a result of such disaster that every county or parish in the State warrant individual and public assistance or public assistance from the Federal Government under such Act and for which— ‘‘(A) in the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5, by at least 3 percentage points; and ‘‘(B) in the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection by at least 3 percentage points.

‘‘(3) The Federal medical assistance percentage determined for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State under paragraph (1) shall apply for purposes of this title (other than with respect to disproportionate share hospital payments described in section 1923 and payments under this title that are based on the enhanced FMAP described in 2105(b)) and shall not apply with respect to payments under title IV (other than under part E of title IV) or payments under title XXI.’’.

Is it any wonder Americans are rebelling against this big spending/big taxing/big government takeover of health care?

It should be abundantly clear by now that this really isn’t about health care but about the acquisition and use of political power.

Saturday’s vote in the U.S. Senate will open the door to this monstrosity becoming law. History shows that a vote to continue the debate sets this hideous legislative abomination on a glide path to approval.

I’m currently traveling and writing this from an airport, but here is what I know so far:

An unknown person put postings on some climate skeptic websites that advertised an FTP file on a Russian FTP server, here is the message that was placed on the Air Vent today:

We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps.

We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents

The file was large, about 61 megabytes, containing hundreds of files.

It contained data, code, and emails from Phil Jones at CRU to and from many people.

I’ve seen the file, it appears to be genuine and from CRU. Others who have seen it concur- it appears genuine. There are so many files it appears unlikely that it is a hoax. The effort would be too great.

Watts has the text of some of the huge file’s emails posted on his website. Saunter over to the first link above to read at his site.

Of special note is CRU’s Prof. Phil Jones’ admission of fudging the numbers to hide the temperature decline.

[Emphasis added by Mata]I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 or NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Another email was from another associate, Jonathan Overpeck, discussing a proposed letter to the Senate to combat the “continued assault on the science of climate change by some on Capitol Hill”. Overpeck is less than thrilled at being part of alterating data to comply with political aims, suggesting that such nefarious deeds were best left to other organizations.

Hi all – I’m not too comfortable with this, and would rather not sign – at least not without some real time to think it through and debate the issue. [Emphasis added by Mata] It is unprecedented and political, and that worries me.

My vote would be that we don’t do this without a careful discussion first.

I think it would be more appropriate for the AGU or some other scientific org to do this – e.g., in reaffirmation of the AGU statement (or whatever it’s called) on global climate change.

Think about the next step – someone sends another letter to the Senators, then we respond, then…

I’m not sure we want to go down this path. It would be much better for the AGU etc to do it.

What are the precedents and outcomes of similar actions? I can imagine a special-interest org or group doing this like all sorts of other political actions, but is it something for scientists to do as individuals?

Just seems strange, and for that reason I’d advise against doing anything with out real thought, and certainly a strong majority of co-authors in support.

Dissention in the CRU ranks over a scientific “concensus” has been growing, noted by Watts in his May 2009 post, where Professor of Climate Change at the University of East Anglia (aka CRU), Mike Hulme, shed his closet AGW proponent sheeps clothing, and actively started speaking out against the science behind the UN’s IPCC paper. In an interview with UK’s The Register, he is quoted as saying:

“To hide behind the dubious precision of scientific numbers, and not actually expose one’s own ideologies or beliefs or values and judgements is undermining both politics and science”

Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit – currently overloaded with cyber traffic – posted that CRU cancelled all existing passwords… saying “actions speak loudly”. McIntyre – a veteran in the mineral exploration business – focuses on analyzing “peer reviewed publications” that purport the AGW theory.

Stay tuned… Anthony and crew are atop this story.

Breitbart: There’s a lot of hypocrisy and the dust has settled for ACORN and at the end of the day they’ve recognized that Eric Holder, the Attorney General, has not initiated an investigation into ACORN after we now have seven tapes. There were five initially that came out, ACORN was defunded by the Senate, was defunded by the House, lost it’s link to the Census; while all that damage occurred, Congress didn’t come in to investigate them, obviously not the Attorney General’s office, and they’ve now realized let’s get back into business because they realized that the dust settled and they were not being investigated, it was Hannah, James, and me who were being investigated, that’s why we’ve been forced to offer this latest tape.

Hannity: Are you saying, Andrew, that there are more tapes?

Breitbart: Oh my goodness there are! Not only are there more tapes, it’s not just ACORN. And this message is to Attorney General Holder: I want you to know that we have more tapes, it’s not just ACORN, and we’re going to hold out until the next election cycle, or else if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have, we will comply with you, we will give you the documentation we have from countless ACORN whistleblowers who want to come forward but are fearful of this organization and the retribution that they fear that this is a dangerous organization. So if you get into an investigation, we will give you the tapes; if you don’t give us the tapes, we will revisit these tapes come election time.

Video at the link….

This is in response to the latest video, this time from the LA office….the same one that the LA Times proclaimed would be vindicated.

Gallup Daily tracking results just in. Obama will be below 50% for the first time when we update our numbers at 1pET. http://bit.ly/F3Izu