Four Hawaii Phantom Districts Receive $45,639,408 in Stimulus Funds for 3.4 Jobs

You just have to wonder where the money went…

From WatchDog.org:

Hawaii received $2,284,000 million of federal stimulus funds for the 11the Congressional district, $40,903,941 million for the 15th Congressional district, $1,651,811 for the “00” Congressional district, and $799,656 in the 99th congressional district creating a combined “3.4” jobs or $13,423,355 per job, according to the federal government’s transparency web site for stimulus funds, http://www.Recovery.gov/.However, Hawaii has just two congressional districts, 1 and 2.

Those districts received $592,211,484 million and $174,075,308 respectively, according to the federal web site, creating combined total of 1,541.5 jobs.

See the full report on Hawaii here: http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/StateSummaries/Pages/statesummary.aspx?StateCode=HI

Media inquires to the governor’s office, the state budget office, Hawaii’s US Senators’ office, and the Recovery.gov web site manager this morning about the $45,639,408 allocated to four phantom districts has so far has yielded two responses.

US Sen. Daniel Akaka’s spokesperson, Jesse Van Dyke Broder, says the allocation report most likely has a “clerical” error. He says his office will alert the White House to the problem.

Russell Pang, spokesperson for the governor, says “Mark Anderson, who is the lead for the state on our federal stimulus funds, is sorting through this to see if he can match up what we’ve been awarded / received versus what is reported below for each district.”

Hawaii is far from the only state finding clerical errors in the Recovery.gov web site.

According to the Franklin Center report seen here – http://watchdog.org/2009/11/17/6-4-billion-stimulus-goes-to-phantom-districts/ – New Mexico Watchdog broke the story on Monday morning after finding that $26 million in stimulus money had been distributed to 13 congressional districts–ten more than the state actually has. They say similar reports soon followed from New Hampshire, Kansas, Ohio, Minnesota and West Virginia.

CRU Emails “may” be open to interpretation, but commented code by the programmer tells the real story

From WattsUpWithThat:

When the CRU emails first made it into news stories, there was immediate reaction from the head of CRU, Dr. Phil Jones over this passage in an email:

From a yahoo.com news story:

In one leaked e-mail, the research center’s director, Phil Jones, writes to colleagues about graphs showing climate statistics over the last millennium. He alludes to a technique used by a fellow scientist to “hide the decline” in recent global temperatures. Some evidence appears to show a halt in a rise of global temperatures from about 1960, but is contradicted by other evidence which appears to show a rise in temperatures is continuing.

Jones wrote that, in compiling new data, he had “just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline,” according to a leaked e-mail, which the author confirmed was genuine.

Dr. Jones responded.

Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’?

It’s nice the truth finally coming out. I hate to laugh, but I’ve been saying all along that they’re using bogus science to support a bogus claim. Now the truth is coming out. What remains to be seen is whether or not it will make any difference, or if this will just be ignored like all the other facts that refute the global warmer’s claims.

From The Telegraph:

If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka  CRU) and released 61 megabytes of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

Climate Emails Stoke Debate

Not to beat a dead horse, but…

From The Wall Street Journal:

The scientific community is buzzing over thousands of emails and documents — posted on the Internet last week after being hacked from a prominent climate-change research center — that some say raise ethical questions about a group of scientists who contend humans are responsible for global warming.

The correspondence between dozens of climate-change researchers, including many in the U.S., illustrates bitter feelings among those who believe human activities cause global warming toward rivals who argue that the link between humans and climate change remains uncertain.

Some emails also refer to efforts by scientists who believe man is causing global warming to exclude contrary views from important scientific publications.

“This is horrible,” said Pat Michaels, a climate scientist at the Cato Institute in Washington who is mentioned negatively in the emails. “This is what everyone feared. Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult for anyone who does not view global warming as an end-of-the-world issue to publish papers. This isn’t questionable practice, this is unethical.”

Sen. Merkley: Authority to Force People to Buy Health Insurance is Part of Congress’s ‘Very First Enumerated Power’

These guys are extremely creative. There have been several other attempts to justify forcing people to buy insurance by saying that the Constitution allows (or requires) it, but they all interpret different portions of the Constitution to justify their belief. In this case, the health insurance people would be forced to buy would be either a form of “Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excise”, or part of “the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” However, in the case of the later, these are services Congress is supposed to provide, which apparently is the same as forcing people to purchase, so that argument doesn’t hold much water (although to be honest, I’m no Constitutional scholar, but apparently neither are these idiots). Also, after putting forth their lame interpretations of the Constitution, they quickly move to another question before they can be asked to elaborate on or justify their answers.

From CNSNews (with video):

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D.-Ore.) says that Congress derived the constitutional authority  to make Americans purchase health insurance as part of its ”very first enumerated power.”  He was referring to the language at the beginning of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which says: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.”

CNSNews.com asked Merkley: “Specifically where in the Constitution does Congress get its authority to mandate that individuals purchase health care?”

Merkley said: “The very first enumerated power gives the power to provide for the common defense and the general welfare. So it’s right on, right on the front end.”

U.S. residents fight for the right to hang laundry

When I was a kid growing up, we never used an indoor dryer unless it was winter or raining and we absolutely needed something dried. Apparently times have changed, and even the “greenies” don’t have a problem with wasting money (and “harming the environment”) using a dryer during the summer months because for some reason hanging laundry outside is just too “white trash” or “ghetto.”

From Yahoo! News:

Carin Froehlich pegs her laundry to three clotheslines strung between trees outside her 18th-century farmhouse, knowing that her actions annoy local officials who have asked her to stop.

Froehlich is among the growing number of people across America fighting for the right to dry their laundry outside against a rising tide of housing associations who oppose the practice despite its energy-saving green appeal.

Although there are no formal laws in this southeast Pennsylvania town against drying laundry outside, a town official called Froehlich to ask her to stop drying clothes in the sun. And she received two anonymous notes from neighbors saying they did not want to see her underwear flapping about.

“They said it made the place look like trailer trash,” she said, in her yard across the street from a row of neat, suburban houses. “They said they didn’t want to look at my ‘unmentionables.’”

Froehlich says she hangs her underwear inside. The effervescent 54-year-old is one of a growing number of Americans demanding the right to dry laundry on clotheslines despite local rules and a culture that frowns on it.

Police Officer Uses Taser On 10-Year-Old Girl

From 4029tv.com:

Ozark police said they were called to a home where a mother asked for help with her unruly child, but the 10-year-old’s father said he’s outraged at the force police used against his daughter.

“I would like to say Ozark police Tased this little girl right here. Ten years old and [they] shot electricity through her body, and I want to know how the heck in God’s green earth can they get away with this,” said the girl’s father, Anthony Medlock.

Medlock said his daughter was at her mother’s house when Ozark police Officer Dustin Bradshaw shocked her in the back with a Taser and arrested her.

“If you can’t pick the kid up and take her to your car, handcuff her, then I don’t think you need to be an officer,” Medlock said.

Dems’ immigration reform: Pay your taxes, learn the language, you can stay

That’s what they call “reform?” They’re here illegally and undocumented. They can stay and not pay taxes or learn the language, like they’re doing now.

From Raw Story:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has unveiled the Obama administration’s plan to reform immigration. Key among the proposals are rules that would allow the current undocumented population to stay in the United States, provided they take a number of steps like learning English and paying back taxes, according to published reports.

“The hope is that when we get into the first part of 2010, that we will see legislation begin to move,” Napolitano said, according to The Los Angeles Times.

“An immigration reform bill that includes citizenship for undocumented immigrants is expected to be filed in the House as early as next month by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he will file a bill in the Senate early next year,” The San Antonio Express-News. “He favors a citizenship plan, but also wants increased border security measures.”

Napolitano made the announcement during a Friday speech to the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Under the administration’s proposed rules, in order to become a citizen an undocumented person must register with the government, undergo a criminal background check, pay all back taxes and fees and learn to speak English.

Mystery of world’s worst mass poisoning solved, but problem remains

This part is interesting:

It has long been known that the arsenic comes from water drawn from millions of low-tech “tube wells” scattered across the country.

Ironically the wells were dug — often with the help of international aid agencies — to protect villages from unclean and disease-ridden surface water.

Another case of the unintended consequences of good intentions.

From Raw Story:

Researchers have pinpointed the source of what is probably the worst mass poisoning in history, according to a study published Sunday.

For nearly three decades scientists have struggled to figure out exactly how arsenic was getting into the drinking water of millions of people in rural Bangladesh.

The culprit, says the new study, are tens of thousands of man-made ponds excavated to provide soil for flood protection.

An estimated two million people in Bangladesh suffer from arsenic poisoning, and health experts suspect the toxic, metal-like element has caused — and will continue to cause — many deaths as well.

Symptoms include violent stomach pains and vomiting, diarrhoea, convulsions and cramps. A large dose can kill outright, while chronic ingestion of small doses has been linked to a large range of cancers.

100 new militia groups since Obama elected; watchdog alarmed

Why do you only hear about millitia groups when there’s a Democrat in the White House? Do they somehow cease to exist when there’s a Republican as president? Or is it because the Southern Poverty Law Center tends to be left-leaning so they only become concerned (or feel “threatened”) when there’s a Democrat in office?

From Raw Story:

Some 100 new militia groups have formed since the election of President Barack Obama, says the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In a re-run of the phenomenon seen when President Bill Clinton took office, gun-rights advocates, libertarians, survivalists and others are forming militias as a symbol of their resistance to what they see as an administration that threatens to restrict their right to bear arms and expand government control over the lives of private citizens.

“The truth is that these groups are popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain,” said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a social-justice group that has been tracking the rise of militias over the past year.