Sunday, July 31, 2011

AUG 2 DEADLINE-WHAT HAPPENS ON AUG 3?

 Samuel Burns

The August 2 deadline that was set by the Treasury Department is just around the corner and the fact that no final agreement has been met, what will happen on August 3? If the debt ceiling is not raised and the US does not meet  its outstanding debts, what would be our choices? August federal spending would have to be cut by almost 44%, and treasury would get to decide what bills are paid and what bills don't get paid.    These are a few examples of the paid and unpaid bills.

1. Interest on our existing debt
2. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security
3. Unemployment insurance
4. Defense contracts

Without cutting from the above items, there will not be enough money to fund entire US departments.

1. The Justice Department
2. Labor Department
3. Commerce Department
4. Veterans benefits
5. IRS refunds
6. Military active-duty pay
7. Federal salaries and benefits
8. Special education programs
9. Pale grants
10. Food and rent payments for the poor

To name just a few.

With budget overage at about 1.6 trillion for this year, it would appear to me as a spending problem and not a revenue problem. Since coming into office, Pres. Obama has increased  the size of government by 25% and paying for it with borrowed money. You cannot increase the size of government without increasing the cost therein. With Obama care looming in our future, it is still uncertain what its costs will be. Unemployment is 9.2% and job creation is dismal. We are in a real pickle folks and our political leaders are still playing politics with our future. It is time to stop being a Democrat or a Republican and work together to get America back on track. If we don't cut spending now, it will be dark days ahead for us all.

Balance The Budget

The Heritage Foundation



Why did Heritage decide to issue a plan to fix our fiscal crisis?



Congress borrows 40 cents for every dollar it spends and has pushed our national debt above $14 trillion. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are America's costliest programs. Left on autopilot, they will run up much higher costs as more people retire… and pass on trillions in debt to our kids and grandkids. The only way to reduce spending and crippling debt - saving the American Dream for future generations - is to reform the entire system.


What are the main reforms the Heritage plan makes to the economy?



We reform the federal tax system to foster economic growth, create jobs, increase take-home pay, stimulate savings, and give businesses and families more economic certainty. It gives real economic security to our seniors and those approaching retirement. Our plan fundamentally changes the health insurance tax system, in order to allow Americans better access to affordable care, more choices in the health care market and real ownership of health coverage. It eradicates wasteful programs while offering a stronger safety net for the nation's most vulnerable.


How does the Heritage plan reform federal entitlement programs?



We redesign Social Security and Medicare to truly protect seniors from poverty and improve the quality and availability of their medical care. The Heritage plan makes these programs affordable and sustainable so that future generations will actually have access to them, rather than being saddled with trillions in debt. With Medicaid, Heritage proposes remaking it into an affordable and consumer-driven health care system that gives recipients at the state level the best chance of buying and owning affordable private coverage, while allowing them to keep the plan they have now, if they so choose.


Does the Heritage plan balance the budget?



Yes. The Heritage plan balances the federal budget in the first 10 years after being implemented, without raising taxes. This is a dramatic change of course from budget plans that have been introduced by lawmakers and other policy experts.

Obama Sets Himself for Win-Win on Debt Ceiling

by Guiltygovernment

If you have watched any of the debt ceiling negotiations, you have noticed that it appears that lawmakers are at an impasse.  Every other day it seems someone is walking out of the room.  All of this of course is political posturing.
I believe that this debt ceiling debacle is a win-win for Obama, and a lose-lose forRepublicans.  Let me explain:
Obama appears to have changed the goalpost today, insisting on new taxes to make up for spending cuts.  Democrats are painting a picture in the media that Republicans are holding our nation hostage.  (They tend to accuse their opponents of the very things they themselves are guilty of.)  If the Democrats can get the Republicans to raise taxes it does two things for them:
1.  They get to increase taxes like they have been planning on doing all along.
2.  It makes the Republicans look weak if not treacherous for caving on the very thing voters demanded of them during the last election.
If the Republicans stick to their guns and do not pass an increase in the debt ceiling (which I believe the Democrats are privately praying to the Earth Mother for) they will be able to blame the Republicans for ALL of our economic woes.  I can see them now plastered on MSNBC crying, “The economy was rebounding, and we were almost out of the woods until the Republicans stonewalled the President.  They denied our country the prosperity that every American has a right to!”
I believe that the debt ceiling should not be raised.  Yes, it will hurt, but we need to take our medicine.  The longer we wait to get our affairs in order the harder it will be.  Our grandfathers, fathers are not the only ones to blame.  We were convinced that there is such a thing as a “free lunch”.
We need to be the next “Greatest generation”,  and do the difficult task of ensuring prosperity not for our generation, but for all future generations.
GG

WHO ARE THE EXTREMISTS?


The Burning Platform


by Administrator


The Debt Ceiling Reality Show approaches its grand finale in the next week. The world breathlessly awaits the shocking conclusion. The debt ceiling will be raised. The world will be saved. Wall Street will rejoice. Americans can focus on the important stuff again, like Casey Anthony’s upcoming book, who will win this week’s Toddlers and Tiaras pageant, and the latest app created for their iPads. Based on my observations over the last few weeks, I’m absolutely sure that 90% of the politicians in Washington DC would lose on Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?
Still, the mainstream media and the performing puppet politicians need to create a fearful frenzy among the masses to insure maximum public relations exposure for their lies, misinformation, and mistruths. Wall Street will exert their control over the debate by threatening to crash the market if they don’t get what they want (aka TARP). I generally ignore the talking heads on Fox, MSNBC, CNN, and CNBC, as I could learn more from watching Cash Cab than listening to ideologues spouting their talking points. But, last night I happened to see an hour or so of Fox, CNN and MSNBC. I saw the full spectrum of right wing and left wing rhetoric and fear mongering. These stations should be ashamed to call themselves news organizations. They do not even purport to report the news. They spew talking points generated by the left and right, depending on the station’s bias. Truth is unavailable on the mainstream media.
What the public doesn’t see is the rooms filled with PR maggots in the bowels of Congress generating talking points and testing them in over night polls of the public. Their sole purpose is to generate a message that will convince the public the fiscal debacle is the fault of the other party. The goal is to gain an advantage in the next elections. The long term future of our country is unimportant to the soulless autobots that get paid to misinform and mislead the masses. Leaving unborn generations with an un-payable debt so we can selfishly cling to benefits promised to us by corrupt politicians who only made the promises so they could be elected, is the ultimate in egocentric myopia.
The deceptive talking points created in smoky backrooms in Washington DC and vetted by Madison Ave maggots are easy to detect. Each side pounds home the exact same phrases on every “news” station:
Republican Talking Points
  • We refuse to increase taxes on all Americans to fix a spending problem.
  • Spending has been out of control since Obama took control of the White House (reference $800 billion stimulus package, home buyer tax credit, and Obamacare).
  • Say that Obama doesn’t have a plan and mention his ten year budget.
  • Tell the American people Republicans are fiscally responsible and the real party of change.
  • The people told them to change Washington with the 2010 election.
Democratic Talking Points
  • The Tea Party EXTREMISTS have hijacked the Republican Party and want to destroy the country by forcing the country to default on its debt.
  • The Bush tax cuts and the Bush wars are to blame for the entire increase in debt and deficits.
  • The Republicans want to protect the richest Americans while cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits for the poor.
  • The Democratic Party will never cut Medicare or Social Security.
  • The Democrats are willing to compromise and act like adults, while the evil Republicans resist all offers to strike a deal.
Depending on your ideology, you will find yourself agreeing with the talking points that strike your fancy. Don’t worry; they’ve all been tested on sample groups of ignorant Americans in order to strike the right nerve. As I listened to that bald headed prick – James Carville – screeching on CNN last night about Bush’s wars and tax cuts causing our economic peril today, I wanted to reach into the TV screen and throttle the weasel faced demagogue. The National Debt on the day Bush took office was $5.7 trillion. On the day he left office the National Debt was $10.6 trillion, a $4.9 trillion increase in eight years. Today, the National Debt stands at $14.4 trillion, a $3.8 trillion increase in two and a half years. That sounds bipartisan to me.
Bush certainly did get the U.S. into two wars of choice and his tax cuts, tax rebate checks and expansion of Medicare have contributed trillions to our deficits. He deserves scorn and contempt. But, I do recall that Democrats supported the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. I do recall that Democrats voted for the tax cuts. I do recall that Democrats were gaga about expansion of the Medicare program. A funny thing didn’t happen when Obama was elected. Defense spending did not go down. He increased spending on our war machine. His war budgets put Bush’s to shame. He doubled the war effort in Afghanistan. He upped the ante from two wars to three wars in Libya. The difference between most Bush and Obama policies has been indecipherable.   
Carville’s shrill diatribe against the Tea Party freshman in Congress was the most humorous piece of misinformation of his entire rant. He inadvertently struck upon the most revealing point of this entire debt ceiling farce. He said:
“These Tea Party congressmen act as if they don’t care if they are re-elected in 2012.”
And there you have it. These people are not doing what is in their own best interest to get re-elected. They have shocked the vested interests in Washington by sticking to their principles and not playing the games that left the country bankrupt. This is an outrage to non-principled shills like Carville and Rove. This behavior is declared EXTREMIST by the liberal pundits and self interested Washington hacks. People acting in the long- term best interests of the country are seen as EXTREME by neo-cons like Charles Krauthammer and moderate RINOs like John “Crash” McCain. The entrenched Washington ruling class is uncomfortable with any change. The establishment would prefer to lie to the American public again and let future generations worry about the $100 trillion unfunded obligations they’ve created.
Only in America would people trying to balance the national budget be branded extremists. Is the average American who spends less than they make an extremist? In the eyes of Washington politicians and mainstream media talking heads, you would be an extremist. Let’s peruse some facts and judge who the extremists are:
  • Federal government spending has risen from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to $3.8 trillion in 2011, a 100% increase. Federal government revenues grew from $2.0 trillion in 2001 to $2.5 trillion in 2008, before collapsing to $2.2 trillion today. GDP over this same time frame has grown 47%.
  • The annual Federal budget deficit in 2007 was $160 billion. Annual deficits between 2002 and 2008 ranged between 1% and 4% of GDP. Since 2009, annual budget deficits have exceeded $1.1 trillion and will continue to exceed $1 trillion as far as the eye can see. Annual deficits now exceed 10% of GDP.
  • The Federal government spends in excess of $1.2 trillion per year on the cost of present and past wars, or 55% of all tax revenues.
  • With a gun to their head from Wall Street banks, Congress handed over $700 billion of taxpayer money to the criminal banks that had just crashed the worldwide economic system with their casino gambling. These banks have been getting free money from the Federal Reserve since 2008 and have rewarded themselves with in excess of $70 billion in bonuses since 2008.
  • Obama handed $800 billion of pork to his constituents across the country in order to create 3.5 million jobs. The $800 billion is gone and we’re still waiting for the jobs.
  • The home buyer tax credit scheme cost Americans $22 billion, or $100,000 per additional home sold, and home prices are now 5% lower than they were before this worthless Keynesian scam. And prices continue to fall.
  • The Cash for Clunkers debacle cost Americans $3 billion, or $24,000 per junked car, as a payoff to Government Owned Motors and Obama’s union backers.
  • The taxpayer bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has cost Americans $160 billion so far, with at least another $150 billion to go.
  • The Federal Reserve tripled their balance sheet to $2.7 trillion and is now leveraged 55 to 1, twice the leverage of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers when they failed. A 2% decline in the value of their assets wipes out their capital.
  • The government and Federal Reserve threatened the FASB into changing the accounting rules so the Too Big To Fail Wall Street banks could fraudulently report the value of the assets on their books, to appear solvent.
  • Obamacare will add 30 million people to the government controlled healthcare system, while adding mountains of new bureaucracy, and trillions of added costs.
  • And last but not least, the country goes $4 billion further into debt every day. Or for further perspective: $166 million per hour; $2.8 million per minute; $46,000 per second.
These are the facts of our current economic situation and the liberal mainstream media and slimy politicians like Chuck “I Love Wall Street” Schumer brand the Tea Party congressmen as EXTREMISTS for demanding an end to this out of control Roman orgy of spending. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so utterly disgusting and sad. The only serious proposal to reverse our course and steer away from the approaching iceberg was made by Tom Coburn a couple weeks ago. It was scorned by the ideologues on both sides of the aisle, as it slashed military spending, closed corporate and individual tax loopholes, ended subsidies, and really addressed Medicare and Social Security rather than changing the CPI index. It was DOA and so is this country.
The Boehner plan and the Reid plan are absolute jokes. The Boehner plan cuts $900 billion over ten years with, shockingly, a whole 2.5% of the savings in 2012. Why cut today when you can pretend to cut in the future? We are on track to add $10 trillion of debt over the next ten years and Boehner’s plan will only add $9.1 trillion to the national debt. That is cutting in Washington DC speak. Harry Reid’s plan is even funnier. His $2.2 trillion in “cuts” includes $1 trillion for wars that won’t be fought and the $375 billion of interest expense that won’t be expended for the wars that won’t be fought. No smoke and mirrors in that proposal. These revolting excuses for leaders have both proposed new commissions to recommend spending cuts that won’t be implemented. These brilliant ideas never grow tiresome and old.
The chart created by Mike Shedlock after Paul Ryan offered an alternative ten year budget three months ago shows you everything you need to know about who the real extremists in Washington DC are. The Ryan budget included much deeper cuts than anything proposed by Boehner or Reid and would still add $9 trillion to the National Debt by 2021. After examining this chart it is clear the establishment of both parties in Washington DC have no plan to cut anything. The good news is the national debt will never reach $23 trillion because our economic system will implode long before we approach that figure.  
When you see the old time party hacks and the shrill pundits declare that an agreement must be reached on these fake distant theoretical cuts, you know they just want to protect the status quo. These people have gotten rich from keeping the status quo intact. If EXTREMISM is living within your means, spending less than you bring in, addressing unfunded liabilities, and leaving a country where our children have a fair chance to have a decent future, then count me in the extremist camp. The time is approaching when we need to stand up and be counted. What kind of country shall we be? Do you care? 
“The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are being looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care? When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media? Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.” Ron Paul

2011 Temperature Watch

July 25, 2011

World Climate Report


Halfway through 2011, the year-to-date (January-June) average temperature for the United States is just 0.15°F above the long-term (20th century) average. Although it is certainly too soon to say for sure (especially considering that a good portion of the country has been stuck in an extended heat wave), there is a good case to be made that when the final numbers are in at the end of December, that 2011 will go down as another in a recent string (which now stands at three years and counting) of rather unremarkable years when it comes to the national annual average temperature. The current run of near-normal years is growing evidence that the collection of relatively warm years experienced in the U.S. from 1998-2007 neither represented a new climate state in the U.S. nor a sustained uptick in the rate of warming which could be reliably extrapolated into the future.
Over at MasterResource.org, Chip Knappenberger elucidates why this is the case—catching us up on the temperatures thus far in 2011 and reviewing the recent behavior of the U.S. annual average temperature record.
The bottom line is presented in Figure 1 (below). Figure 1 includes a projection of the 2011 final end-of-the-year temperature placed in the context of the full U.S. temperature history from 1895-2010, and shows that the warm period from 1998-2007 in the United States appears to be over.

Figure 1. Projected value for the U.S. annual temperature for 2011 based on data for the first six months of the year. The blue dot at the end is the current year-to-date (January through June) temperature anomaly. The grey bar represents the region where there is about a 2/3rds chance that the 2011 annual temperature will end up being. The hash marks above and below the grey bar indicate the region where there is about a 95% chance the 2011 annual temperature will ultimately fall, and the vertical line represent the limits of the 2011 annual temperature, based on observations from 1895-2010. The elevated temperatures from 1998-2007 are circled—this warm period now seems to be over. (Data source: U.S. National Climatic Data Center)
Knappenberger concludes:
“If 2011 ultimately turns out to come in in-line with the central projections in Figure [1], it will strengthen the suggestion that the unusually high temperature that characterized the 10-yr period from 1998-2007, were just that, unusual, and do not best represent either the expected trend or the climate state of the U.S. for the next several decades to come.”

The Whole Solar System is Undergoing Global Warming

by Muaddib
This is a fact that not many people know about, and quite a few people, would like that there was no evidence to back this fact, because some people would like the world to believe that human activity is the cause for global warming on Earth. I am not advocating that releasing harmful gases, and chemicals in the oceans and atmosphere are good, but after a few years of research, I have come to understand that global warming is happening in the Solar System, not just on Earth.

Some people just want to listen to what some environmentalists are claiming, that global warming is happening because of human activity, and we are the cause for the extreme changes in climate we have been seeing lately getting worse and worse.

I will let now the facts speak for themselves as to what is really happening.

Mars may be going through a period of climate change, new findings from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter suggest.

Odyssey has been mapping the distribution of materials on and near Mars' surface since early 2002, nearly a full annual cycle on Mars. Besides tracking seasonal changes, such as the advance and retreat of polar dry ice, the orbiter is returning evidence useful for learning about longer-term dynamics.

mars.jpl.nasa.gov...


Martian Ice Shrinking Dramatically

New gullies that did not exist in mid-2002 have appeared on a Martian sand dune.

That's just one of the surprising discoveries that have resulted from the extended life of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, which this month began its ninth year in orbit around Mars. Boulders tumbling down a Martian slope left tracks that weren't there two years ago. New impact craters formed since the 1970s suggest changes to age-estimating models. And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress.

mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

Prediction of a global climate change on Jupiter
Philip S. Marcus

Top of pageJupiter's atmosphere, as observed in the 1979 Voyager space craft images, is characterized by 12 zonal jet streams and about 80 vortices, the largest of which are the Great Red Spot and three White Ovals that had formed1 in the 1930s. The Great Red Spot has been observed2 continuously since 1665 and, given the dynamical similarities between the Great Red Spot and the White Ovals, the disappearance3, 4 of two White Ovals in 1997−2000 was unexpected. Their longevity and sudden demise has been explained5 however, by the trapping of anticyclonic vortices in the troughs of Rossby waves, forcing them to merge. Here I propose that the disappearance of the White Ovals was not an isolated event, but part of a recurring climate cycle which will cause most of Jupiter's vortices to disappear within the next decade. In my numerical simulations, the loss of the vortices results in a global temperature change of about 10 K, which destabilizes the atmosphere and thereby leads to the formation of new vortices. After formation, the large vortices are eroded by turbulence over a time of 60 years—consistent with observations of the White Ovals—until they disappear and the cycle begins again.

www.nature.com...

Pluto is undergoing global warming, researchers find
October 9, 2002

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--Pluto is undergoing global warming, as evidenced by a three-fold increase in the planet's atmospheric pressure during the past 14 years, a team of astronomers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Williams College, the University of Hawaii, Lowell Observatory and Cornell University announced in a press conference today at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's (AAS) Division for Planetary Sciences in Birmingham, AL.

The team, led by James Elliot, professor of planetary astronomy at MIT and director of MIT's Wallace Observatory, made this finding by watching the dimming of a star when Pluto passed in front of it Aug. 20. The team carried out observations using eight telescopes at Mauna Kea Observatory, Haleakala, Lick Observatory, Lowell Observatory and Palomar Observatory. Data were successfully recorded at all sites.

An earlier attempt to observe an occultation of Pluto on July 19 in Chile was not highly successful. Observations were made from only two sites with small telescopes because the giant telescopes and other small telescopes involved lost out to bad weather or from being in the wrong location that day. These two occultations were the first to be successfully observed for Pluto since 1988. 

web.mit.edu...

That's a 300% increase in atmospheric pressure in Pluto, which is the highest increase in any planet in the Solar system, and it is increasing as Pluto orbits away from the Sun. If the Sun is the cause for global warming in the solar system, as some scientists say, why is it that Pluto, the planet that is the farthest away from the Sun, experiencing the most severe effects, and it is getting worse and worse as it orbits away from the sun?

Pluto thought to be warming up
Astronomers at the University of Tasmania have found that the solar system's smallest planet is not getting colder as first thought and it probably does not have rings.

Dr John Greenhill has collected observations from last month's event when Pluto passed in front of a bright star, making it easier to study.

French scientists have shared the measurements they took in Tasmania that night, which indicate that the planet is unlikely to have rings.

Dr Greenhill says the results are surprising because they show Pluto is warming up.

"It looks as though the atmosphere has not changed from 2002, which is pretty surprising because we expected the atmosphere would freeze out as the planet moved further away from the Sun," he said.

"But so far, if anything, the atmosphere has gotten even denser."

www.abc.net.au...


The following is a site which was made by several scientists who have no links with any government, or corporation, their findings are very interresting and give a different picture as to what is causing global warming. I can't quote any excerpts as there is a copyright issue, but I will post the link. Anyone interested in that information should read that site.

biocab.org...

biocab.org...

Title:
Is the solar system entering a nearby interstellar cloud
Authors:
Vidal-Madjar, A.; Laurent, C.; Bruston, P.; Audouze, J.
Affiliation:
AA(CNRS, Laboratoire de Physique Stellaire et Planetaire, Verrieres-le-Buisson, Essonne, France), AB(CNRS, Laboratoire de Physique Stellaire et Planetaire, Verrieres-le-Buisson, Essonne, France), AC(CNRS, Laboratoire de Physique Stellaire et Planetaire, Verrieres-le-Buisson, Essonne, France), AD(Meudon Observatoire, Hauts-de-Seine; Paris XI, Universite, Orsay, Essonne, France)
Publication:
Astrophysical Journal, Part 1, vol. 223, July 15, 1978, p. 589-600. (ApJ Homepage)
Publication Date:
07/1978
Category:
Astrophysics
Origin:
STI
NASA/STI Keywords:
ASTRONOMICAL MODELS, DEUTERIUM, HYDROGEN ATOMS, INTERSTELLAR GAS, SOLAR SYSTEM, ABUNDANCE, EARLY STARS, GAS DENSITY, INTERSTELLAR EXTINCTION
DOI:
10.1086/156294
Bibliographic Code:
1978ApJ...223..589V

Abstract
....................
Observational arguments in favor of such a cloud are presented, and implications of the presence of a nearby cloud are discussed, including possible changes in terrestrial climate. It is suggested that the postulated interstellar cloud should encounter the solar system at some unspecified time in the 'near' future and might have a drastic influence on terrestrial climate in the next 10,000 years.

adsabs.harvard.edu...

ESA sees stardust storms heading for Solar System

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Monday, August 18, 2003
Source: Artemis Society

Until ten years ago, most astronomers did not believe stardust could enter our Solar System. Then ESA's Ulysses spaceprobe discovered minute stardust particles leaking through the Sun's magnetic shield, into the realm of Earth and the other planets. Now, the same spaceprobe has shown that a flood of dusty particles is heading our way. 
...........
What is surprising in this new Ulysses discovery is that the amount of stardust has continued to increase even after the solar activity calmed down and the magnetic field resumed its ordered shape in 2001.

Scientists believe that this is due to the way in which the polarity changed during solar maximum. Instead of reversing completely, flipping north to south, the Sun's magnetic poles have only rotated at halfway and are now more or less lying sideways along the Sun's equator. This weaker configuration of the magnetic shield is letting in two to three times more stardust than at the end of the 1990s. Moreover, this influx could increase by as much as ten times until the end of the current solar cycle in 2012.

www.spaceref.com...